


Turritopsis

by LaLaCat1



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Political Animals
Genre: Crossover, Pseudoscience, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 06:14:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 86,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1808365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaLaCat1/pseuds/LaLaCat1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HYDRA goes too far and injures the Winter Soldier beyond repair. They turn to a dangerous new procedure to reverse the ageing process and, hopefully, the harm they have done to their greatest weapon. Fast forward thirty years to TJ Hammond, a late night kidnapping, and a blond man who feels like home coming to his rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, Political Animals has crept into my mind and I cannot make it go away. And all I could think while I was watching it was how much cooler the show would be if TJ was somehow, against all odd or probability, Bucky.
> 
> You don't need to know a thing about Political Animals. Steve doesn't, so you're in good company if you don't. You can both learn together.
> 
> Also, this is where the idea for this story came from. Check these guys out, they are amazing.  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii

The room was silent save for the steady wail of the heart monitor. The figure on the operating table lay still and sightless. He looked young, only a footstep into his twenties, but he had been alive far longer than any of the surgeons or scientists pulling their bloody gloves off with groans of frustration. Three tireless hours of struggle, and in the end it had all been worthless.

“Told them there was only so many times they could thaw raw meat,” one of the scientists, Kevin, said with a disapproving click of this tongue. He held his clipboard close to his chest, heedless of the drying ink. The surgery had been instructive, if nothing else.

He’d spoken too loud. Alexander, director of the program and the main reason Kevin had a job, shot him a withering look. He strode across the room, the soles of his fancy leather shoes clicking on the smooth cement floor. He didn’t so much as slip on the slick surface, even with the blood.

“This is an opportunity for you to shine,” Alexander said. Nothing about his tone made it sound like an opportunity. Insted it sound like Kevin was hanging on a knife’s edge of replacing the body on that table.

“You’re the one that insisted we should try to regenerate the asset’s cellular structure. Well, now's your chance.” Alexander leaned in close, eyes narrowed. “I want you to clone him. Everything. All of it, right now to the enhancements.”

Kevin floundered. He gaped, mouth too dry to find words. Even through his fear, the misunderstanding and mischaricterization of his research had him speaking through the cotton in hos mouth. “It’s not cloning, not really. An—and,” he croaked. “All my research is experimental. It hasn't been tested on more that lab rats yet.”

Alexander looked back at the still body on the table. The asset’s metal arm had been removed, had to be after the amount of damage it sustained. 

“But you think you can do it. You can reverse the aging process, bring him back to a fetal stage.” Again, Alexander did not sound like he was asking a question. He was not allowing for the possibility of failure. 

There on that table was proof enough of the treatment failure was met with.

Now was not the time to be afraid. Now was the time to be bold, assert himself. Alexander was going to make Kevin try, whether he thought to research was ready for human trials or not. It was one thing to observe the regressive, regenerative properties of Turritopsis Dohrnii as the jellyfish aged backward and forward in time, it was another thing entirely to harness that gene and then apply it to a mammal. So far it had worked with the rats (after only minor, horrifying errors). There was no reason why he couldn’t inject this body and make it turn back into a cluster of cells waiting to form proper, forceful life. The asset might even survive, he had the serum in his veins and regression would not work that out, not when it was so much a part of his DNA now.

Besides, the asset was, for all intents and purposes, dead already. What harm could it do?

"Do you have a surrogate lined up? This procedure will work much better if conditions are as close to natural as possible.”

Alexander waved the concern away. “One of our men has been looking for a leg up. His wife is pregnant.” A smile slid across Alexander’s face. “Congratulations to her; she’s now having twins.”

Kevin sighed. He stepped closer to the table and looked down at the figure on the table. Even for a mindless tool, a sharp knife meant for nothing but death, the procedure about to be inflicted on the asset's body was cruel. Kevin owed it to this man to remember what his face looked like now, in this moment.

Had the asset been relieved when he drew what he thought would be his last breath? Had he imagined freedom finally within his grasp?

Did the Winter Soldier have enough humanity left in him to wish for such a thing?

“Bring him to my lab. We need to act quickly,” Kevin said. 

He turned away from the body.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
30 Years Later

It took TJ a moment to realize he was awake. For the last two days he’d been slipping into fever dreams during his turbulent sleep that made it difficult to tell reality for fantasy. It always seemed like mornings were the hardest, the moment when the withdrawals hit with all their strength, and it seemed like each morning came a little bit earlier than the last. Nausea normally roused him, brought on by the shuttering in his limbs or the pounding in his head. He didn’t think he was going to throw up right now, and the pounding in his head--while unpleasant--wasn’t what had woken him.

A sound, soft and unassuming but utterly alien to the beat and pulse of the house, drifted from the kitchen.

Was someone in there? Mom was still at the White House and would be for the next twenty four hours at least, Dougie and Anne were at their apartment, Dad was wherever he went when he wasn’t lingering around Mom, and Grandma wouldn't be up at— he glanced at the digital alarm clock— 2:30 AM.

The momentary thought of a dealer or someone he owed something to breaking into his mother’s house had TJ sitting up in bed, but the concern slipped from him almost as soon as it came. It wasn’t public knowledge yet that he was here, so anyone looking for him would go to his crappy little apartment, not Mom’s well-guarded house full of secret service men.

Which meant, if someone had gotten into the house they either belong here and were let in or they were the world’s best burglar. Or he was hearing things that weren’t there.

He groaned and pressed the heel of his hand into his right eye. Hallucinations. Wonderful. Thought he might be able to get all the way through detox without that happening this time, but apparently not. He was never going to catch a break, was he?

Either way, TJ was awake now. He might as well get up and prove to himself that there were no buglers prowling around while his grandmother slept down the hall. He wasn’t getting back to sleep tonight anyway. The wooden floor was shockingly cold against his bare feet, but it helped to distract from the pain in his head, so that was fine. Little things, small dissociations from what was going on inside his body were a blessing he’d gladly take. Even if the cold made his shakes worse. 

Besides, there was no one around who would care that he was in his boxers and not much else. The service men had seen him in worse--or better, depending on how they wanted to swing it--and Grandma wasn’t going to care even if she was awake.

What he needed was something cold. A stiff drink wouldn’t go amiss either but he would settle for the shitty mineral waters the house was stocked full of now. He pulled open the door, growing at the throb of pain even that little bit of exertion brought on in his skull, and blinked. 

The muzzle of a very large gun pressed close to his face.

TJ froze.

Behind the gun was a man. He watched TJ through the scope. He raised one very deliberate, black gloved finger to his lips and indicated silence.

TJ took a step back into the room. The man crowded forward and waved the hand he’d gestured with a moment ago. TJ had the absurd thought that the man was waving to him until three more black clad, gun toting men stepped forward. They stood on either side of the door, watching the hallway and living room with quiet, deadly concentration.

The man prodded his gun under TJ’s ribs. TJ stumbled back, hit his knees against the edge of the bed and fell into a hard sit on the mattress. The man leaned close, not close enough for TJ to touch but close enough for him to make out the dark stubble along the hard line of his jaw.

“Stay quiet and do exactly what I say or Grandma never wakes up,” the man said. He sounded almost soothing.

A hysterical laugh began to bubble its way up TJ’s throat. He had to be hallucinating now. Had to be. This wasn’t real. There weren’t actually men in his mother’s house threatening to shoot people. He wanted to wake a crack about not doing drugs, but there was nothing in his system right now so this was a totally home-grown moment of psychosis.

“We have two minutes, Rumlow,” one of the men outside the room said in low tones.

“Rumlow?” TJ repeated. The name meant something to him in that distant, haze-filled blur of a memory through the cloud of cocaine. 

Rumlow pulled back his fist and punched TJ. His fist connected with a solid thud against TJ’s jaw, knocking him over backwards onto the bed. The nausea, a background aggravation before, came close to choking him now.

Maybe he met a Rumlow and forgot? Would a one-night stand try to shoot him so long after the fact? Rumlow grabbed him by the upper arm and pulled TJ off the bed. He followed, stumbling and gagging, as they lead him from the house. A black SUV sat at the bottom steps, two more men lingering near it with the aggressively casual air associated with CIA. One reached out and pulled open the SUV’s back door, glancing up and down the street as he did so.

TJ’s stomach did another unpleasant twist. The man holding the door open was the blond he’d hooked up with months ago, the one that insisted he’d wanted to sleep with TJ since Dad was in the White House.

What was going on?

Rumlow gave a grunt of annoyance at the slow pace. One large hand lifted to push TJ’s head down and shove him into the back seat of the car. He couldn’t keep track of what was happening. Everything felt like it was spinning and not in a good way. The rest of the men climbed in beside him, crowding TJ between their bodies. It was hard to breath, he couldn’t get enough air, what about Grandma? Where they doing this to get back at Mom for something? Were they dealers?

Something sharp pricked him in the arm. It burnt. TJ tried to pull away, but more hands held him in place. It felt like there was liquid in his head, sloshing behind his eyes. TJ couldn’t feel his arms or legs anymore, everything was slipping away--

When TJ came back to himself he was no longer in a car. There was a hard, flat surface under him, cold metal restrains strapped across his arms and legs. A bitter taste lingered on his tongue so maybe he’d thrown up. He hoped it got all over the guys in the car. Shivers raced through his body, the cold of the room penetrating deeply. His shirt was gone. Why was his shirt gone?

Where was he?

There was too much cotton in his brain to think. He felt wrong. He felt so, so wrong. 

Was he in the hospital? Maybe he’d OD’d again, and everything from before was a dream.

A man in a white lab coat stepped up to the table. He had glasses perched on the end of his nose and soft, receding brown hair swept back from his face. He looked down at TJ clinically and scribbled something on the clipboard he had in his hands.

“I told them not to administer the drug unless he resisted,” the doctor said.

It was Dr. Anderson. He used to be TJ’s pediatrician. Used to hand out lollipops after appointments when he had to take blood or give shots. 

“Dr. An’son--” TJ said, but it came out so slurred and soft he didn’t think Dr. Anderson heard him.

“Relax, doctor. You have the live specimen now. The sedative will wear off in a few hours, and then you’ll have all the fresh sample you could possibly want.”

The voice sounded from outside TJ’s line of sight. He wanted to turn his head and see who had spoken, but his muscles weren’t working right now. The room kept going fuzzy around the edges. His teeth chattered so hard. It should hurt, but he couldn’t feel it. Too much cotton everywhere.

Dr. Anderson nodded absently. He tucked the clipboard under his right arm and fumbled in the pocket of his coat. There was a syringe, some kind of shot, in his hand, but TJ missed the moment between Dr. Anderson reaching for it and pulling his hand out of his pocket again. Maybe it wasn’t a shot, there wasn’t any liquid in the syringe.

He couldn’t feel the needle slip into his skin.

“I want you working non-stop on this project. All the information you need to recreate the serum is in his blood. I want to know how to make more of it by the end of the month,” the second voice said.

TJ watched the syringe fill with red.

“We already know it carried over with the regression process, so it bonds with a hoast on a genetic level. With the right samples, it should be possible to duplicate,” Dr. Anderson said. 

“Don’ feel good,” TJ slurred.

Dr. Anderson’s eyes flickered up to TJ’s face; there was a moment of recognition—

“Is there a problem, doctor?” the second voice asked. It was in the same tone Mom used when she already knew the answer she wanted to hear and was expecting you to give it.

“No,” Dr. Anderson said, turning away. He looked back towards the voice and added, “Are we sure the handler will cooperate? I know the surrogate wasn’t consulted or informed about this procedure, but it certainly seemed like the handler had grown fond of the subject.”

TJ closed his eyes tightly and willed himself to wake up. He didn’t understand this. He wanted to go home.

“Let me deal with that. If it becomes necessary, his name will be added to the algorithm.”

“I still can’t believe this report is accurate. There was enough cocaine in his system to kill three men. He should be dead, serum or not.”

The voice stepped up beside Dr. Anderson and TJ knew this had to be a dream. There was no way Mr. Pierce was here. He was important. He would be at the White House with Mom, he’d have to be. He worked for the CIA or Homeland Security or something like that. He would need to be there because they were talking about what to do now that the president had died.

“That’s the beauty of the thing, Kevin. You’ve seen the video, you’ve read the file. The first one was damn near indestructible. This time, we’re going to correct that mistake,” Pierce said.

Dr. Anderson’s eyes skittered down to TJ once more before focusing on his clipboard again. “And the obedience issues?”

“A little pain can do a world of good and, when the time’s right, you’re going to wipe him.” Pierce smiled down at TJ and patted him on one bare, shivering shoulder. “You’re going to do so much good for your country, son.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time stopped meaning anything. TJ couldn’t tell if it had been three days or a thousand since he woke up to gunmen in his Mother’s house. They never let him see a clock, never took him past a window, no one ever answered when he asked them what day it was, how long he’d been here, if his family was alright. Eventually he stopped asking altogether. Things hurt less when he didn’t get anyone mad and asking questions made them mad.

There were tests. Always tests. How long could they make him hold his breath before he passed out? How hard a blow could he take before his bones broke? How much could he memorize? How accurate was his recall? Blood tests, tissues samples, hair sample. The latest was a bone marrow sample that left his skin bruised and his hip in agony for hours, but it was beginning to dim. No matter what they did to him, his body bounced back. 

The only time someone spoke to him at all was to let him know his fractured arm had healed in record time.

TJ knew he healed fast. He rarely got sick, hardly ever managed to get drunk, started on the harder drugs in the first place because he was looking for a high and nothing could give it to him. But this was different. Whatever they were doing to him had changed something in him, altered him in some way. He wanted to be sick, but they didn’t give him enough food to do more than dry heave whenever the nausea hit. It was another test, something about his caloric intake and energy exertion, but he couldn’t remember the specifics. Things kept slipping out of his head each time they gave him another injection.

Pierce was here today. He stood there while they flashed images at TJ and demanded he pick out patterns in the chaotic glimpses. 

Dr. Anderson moved across the room to meet Pierce. There was a tension in him that was absent most days. The women with the automatic weapon--he recognized her from the party he threw for Mom when she was in the primaries, had slept with her and the guard who sometimes stood outside the little cell they kept him in-- watched Dr. Anderson and Pierce but tried to make it look like she wasn’t.

“Fury is dead?” Dr. Anderson asked, voice sharp with fear.

“We’re stepping up the time table. I want him wiped and ready for training in twenty-four hours,” Pierce said.

TJ risked a glance away from the flashing images. Neither Pierce nor Dr. Anderson was looking at him. The guard was. For a brief moment he could see the sweet-faced girl who’d smiled at him as she ran her fingers through his hair. Whatever “wiped and ready” meant, it made her look at TJ like he was a person, and one she pitied.

But only for a moment. As soon as Dr. Anderson returned to TJ’s side her face melted back into the smooth, dispassionate mask it had been before the words were uttered.

In that moment TJ realized something. He was going to die here. They were going to kill him and no one, not the man who used to smile at him and treat his colds as a child, not the girl who whispered that she might love him into his ear late one night, no one was going to help him. His parents would never know what happened. They probably assumed he was already dead, that he’d wandered off the night the men came for him in search of a high and died in some gutter somewhere. It’s where he had been heading anyway.

“Come. We’re moving on,” Dr. Anderson said, tight and cold.

TJ stood and followed him out of the room, the woman walking behind them with her gun pointed down to the ground. They used to keep the weapons trained on him all the time, like they were afraid he was going to attack. He wasn’t stupid enough to try and take on armed, trained professionals when he was drugged, disoriented and had hardly ever thrown a punch in his life. It would be suisidal. But that was back when TJ thought there was a chance they might let him go.

He didn’t think there was much chance of that anymore.

Instead of turning right, like they should in order to go back to the cell, they turned left. They led him back to the room he’d woken in, with the hard metal table. There was a drain under the table that he hadn’t understood until the first time they began the endurance tests. He’d vomited all over himself, the scientists poking and prodding him, and the table itself. They showered him off and kept working like there hadn’t been an interruption.

TJ looked down at his hands. How hard would he have to hit Dr. Anderson to knock him down and keep him there? He glanced over his shoulder at the woman, who ignored the look. Could he wrestle the gun from her if he moved fast enough?

“Don’t try. I’d rather not shoot you and get reprimanded for killing their pet clone,” the woman said without making eye contact.

The guards had called him that before, but never Dr. Anderson. No one would explain what they meant by it.

There was a new machine set up behind the metal table. It was large, and curved, with a rounded section that looked about head height. He knew instinctively that it was going to touch his head. They hadn’t done anything to his skull or face yet, but it was only a matter of time before they started poking around in his brain, right? They were going to kill him anyway, might as well cut him open and find out exactly what made him tick.

Fear locked his joints and froze TJ on the spot. Wiped and ready. It meant something terrible enough to make them look at him like a living, breathing person for a second. It was going to kill him. If he walked into that room and let them do whatever it was they wanted to do, it was going to kill him.

“Please don’t do this,” he whispered through numb lips.

Dr. Anderson didn’t even turn around. He kept walking like he hadn’t heard a thing. 

The woman’s gun was up again. She prodded it hard into his still bruised hip. TJ whimpered, pain numbing the left side of his body. Still, he didn’t move.

“You don’t need to be whole for this procedure to work,” the woman said. There was no pity in her voice, not hit of the look she’d given him back in the testing room. “I can put a bullet in your leg and drag you into that chair if I need to.”

“Please—” he said again. There were tears in his eyes. His body shook so hard he wouldn’t have been able to walk even if he’d wanted to. “Please.”

“Move,” she repeated.

TJ didn’t hear anyone else come into the hall, not over the rushing sound in his ears, but there were suddenly hands on him, pulling him forward. He struggled wildly. Kicked and punched and flung himself backwards. One man—one of the men from his house—went flying and hit a wall hard. He did not get back up when he connected with the ground. TJ’s heel connected with something behind him and a voice screamed as the sound of a wet crack made him flinch. A violent jerk on his shoulder had TJ spinning, he caught a glimpse of Rumlow drawing back his gloved fist—

There was no time between the blow landing and the soldiers dragging TJ over to the metal table. Between on eye blink and the next there was straps on his arms and leg, voices sliding over him and under him and around him like cold slime, seeping into every bit of his body, weighing him down, drowning him. The helmet clamped down and covered one eye, throwing the room into a warped, half shadowed perspective.

And then the world was pain. 

Pain.

Everywhere, endless.

Pain.

~~~~~~~~~~~

TJ didn’t remember how long he’d been here, or where here was, or why the people outside his cell wanted to hurt him. They wouldn’t refer to him by name, or answer when he spoke to them, and it made him wonder if he wasn’t crazy sometimes. On a bad trip and never coming down. There were vague images in the back of his mind that felt like family—maybe—or like people that wouldn’t watch him cry with a clipboard in their hands, but they were slippery and hard to hold onto

There was a man in his head, blond and beautiful. Flashes like polaroids made a thrill of something burning and good tingle under his skin, but he couldn’t remember what the man’s name was, when they met, why the man would touch him without pain

Flashes of red hair and forceful voices, the smell of cognac and freshly cut flowers. He remembered a smiling man and woman—she was dressed in white— and a wide expanse of greenery. He remembered a large man with a grin that made his eyes glint when he said, “I always thought of you and your brother when it got hard.” There was a woman who pet his hair and whispered platitudes to him while he felt ill and it was this face that he missed the most.

A doctor stood outside his cell, holding a clipboard and clucking his tongue. 

“It didn’t take this time either. It’s the third attempt to wipe him clean, but pieces still linger,” the doctor said to the man standing beside him. The man was not blond, or red haired. He did not smile or smell of cognac, so he was not one of the mysterious figures dancing in the back of his mind.

The man tugged at his hair and paced like a caged lion. He did not know what a caged lion would look like as it paced, but nonetheless, he was sure the man mirrored its motions.

“Pierce is dead. They shot him. All three of the Insight ships went down. They’re coming for us, and he was supposed to be our trump card. Wipe him again,” the man said, but the doctor shook his head.

“We risk brain damage every time we use the equipment. It’s a wonder that he isn’t a drooling mess. Anyone without the serum in their blood would be dead by now.”

The man stopped his relentless pacing and stared into the cell. Their eyes locked. The man outside the cell had been here before, there was a vague impression of recognition about him. It was hard to remember when though…

“We should kill him then, and get the hell out of here before they find this place,” the man said.

“That would be a bad idea,” a new voice, a third voice (he could still count to three, he remembered how to count to three) said before something circular and colorful flashed down the hallway. It hit the man and the doctor, knocked them both over hard enough for them to stay down.

He ducked his head and curled his arms over his face because a third person meant a third chance for pain and it was harder to remember things when he was in pain, their faces would slip away again and he might not remember them this time.

“Are you alright?” the voice asked.

“Thomas Hammond. Thomas Hammond. Thomas Hammond. TJ. TJ. TJ.”

The new person walked forward. He pressed his face up close to the bars of the cell and listened to Thomas TJ Hammond repeat his name over and over because if he stopped he might forget. He forgot for a little while earlier, and he had to remember because if he lost his name he lost everything. He lost the woman with the red hair, he lost the smell of cognac, the smiling man and woman, and the blond man that made TJ feel like TJ, like a person and not the lab rat they were making him out to be.

The man outside his cage had a blue helmet on and tight blue and white pants. The helmet covered part of his face, but it left his chin and lips visible. H e was frowning down at the still doctor and the man who wanted to kill TJ, which was enough to make TJ let his arms slip slightly lower.

“Are you alright?” the man repeated as he picked up the round object--a shield--and turned to face the cell.

TJ watched the man’s very blue eyes go wide.

The man made a choked sound. TJ couldn’t tell if it was anger or sadness but either way, it frightened him. He pressed back into the corner of his little cell and wrapped his arms around his head again. They didn’t normally hit him right off the bat, but when they did they tended to aim for the head. A screech of metal bending, bending, breaking made TJ flinch and close his eyes.

“Please...Please look at me,” the man said. He sounded hurt, dying, like TJ when he remembered he was TJ and then remembered that they had been able to make him forget.

Something deep inside twinged, like a memory only not because memories were too shallow and too easy to wipe away. This, whatever it was, felt like it was mapped onto his bones, into the fabric of his DNA, he had to look up but he didn’t want to because he was afraid to see what could make a man like this one sound so hurt.

The man had pulled off the helmet while TJ wasn’t looking.

He was blond.

“Bucky,” the man whispered.

TJ scrunched his shoulders and tried to make himself small. “Who is Bucky?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! Also, I have no bata reader, so any errors are my own. I hope ( if there are any) that they do not pull away from the story too much.

Steve hadn't felt nauseous in three years. The last time he felt anything close to sick was the week before Bucky shipped out. A sudden asthma attack hit him hard. The first fingers of fall were beginning to wander their way across Brooklyn. The difference in temperature is what did it, the sudden cold after weeks of oppressive, humid heat. Bucky sat up with him all night, bringing pot after pot of boiling water into the bedroom they shared to try and recreate the humidity that Steve’s lungs desperately wanted. Lack of air made him nauseous, which made him sick, which robbed more of his breath and created a vicious cycle that had Bucky looking on the verge of tearing off for a doctor they couldn’t afford.

It shouldn't be one of Steve’s happier memories, but it was anyway. He remembered waking up in the early hours of morning to Bucky stroking his damp blond hair away from his face and humming to himself. Bucky was an amazing piano player—whenever he got the chance to practice, which wasn't often—but it was a less well-known secret that he sang beautifully too. It was the last time he got to hear it before Bucky shipped out.

Steve knew he wasn’t having an asthma attack right now, because the serum made things like asthma attacks impossible. That didn’t stop his lungs from constricting or his muscles from seizing up, or his head from spinning. Back in the 40’s some of the physicians he spoke to used to tell him asthma was all psychosomatic, that he was intentionally not breathing. Bucky always said they were wackos and full of it because who would choose not to breathe? Steve could see where the doctors were coming from now though because he couldn't breathe but he didn’t have asthma, and it was all because of what he was looking at now.

All because of whom he was looking at now.

He wrapped his hands around the metal bars of the cell and pulled as hard as he possibly could. They gave just enough for him to squeeze in sideways and step up to the huddled figure against the wall. Bucky — because it was Bucky. His hair was cut differently, a little longer than it had been back in the war, his face was a little fuller, and the lines around his eyes that crept in during their trek across Europe seemed to be gone, but it was still Bucky through and through. He pulled back against the wall and tried to make himself smaller. His eyes tracked Steve’s hands first to the bars of the cell and then to the no man’s land between them where Steve tried to keep them up and in plain sight. Every bit of his actions spoke of an expectation of pain, and it made Steve want to step out of the cell and hit Rumlow and the doctor again, unconscious or not.

But Bucky was more important than either of them were.

“Who is Bucky?” he repeated. His voice sounded far away and reedy, like it had when Steve pulled him off the table in Zola’s lab.

“You’re Bucky,” Steve said. He crouched down low to be at eye level, trying to make himself smaller as well. He was afraid to breathe, afraid to blink. He watched Bucky die, but here he was, perfectly alive and whole. How was that even possible?

They must have given him some version of the serum, just like they did Steve. It was cold enough up there in the mountains, Bucky could have gone through the same strange freezing process that Steve did, maybe it was a side effect of the serum itself: spontaneous suspended animation when exposed to cold.

“I— My name is TJ Hammond,” Bucky said, but he sounded unsure and on the verge of panic. His eyes darted around the cell, past Steve’s shoulder to the opening in the bars and then immediately to the ground. Afraid he’d been caught.

“TJ. I like that name, too. Bucky is a nickname,” Steve said, smiling. He wiggled his fingers until Bucky’s eyes darted up to take in the movement. “Do you want to get out of here, TJ?”

He didn’t care what Bucky wanted to call himself, so long as he was alright. This lab had popped up on their radar when Natasha uploaded the SHIELD data onto the internet a week ago. Tony called almost as soon as the information hit the net (Steve had been a bit busy not getting shot in one of the Insight ships, so he’d missed the call) with gleeful information about all the HYDRA bases that were now marked and out in the open. Nat and Tony both said the schematics of the building made it look like they were housing something big, something that drained a lot of energy to keep it functioning. Cryogenic parts, high-end medical equipment, it all stunk of the sort of experiments Zola conducted under the Red Skull.

He never really thought he would enter this base and find Bucky, just like he had all those years ago.

“Do I…I think I know you,” Bucky said. He glanced at the ground, the cell doors, and then Steve’s face again. “I think—but I don’t remember.”

He placed a hand on his head and tugged at his hair. “They did something.”

Steve nodded so quickly the attacked helmet of his suit smacked against the back of his head. Bucky—TJ?—flinched back at the exuberant, enthusiastic motion.

“Yeah, yeah, you do know me. We’re friends. I’m going to get you out of here,” Steve said.

For the first time, something like suspicion replaced the fear. “You’re not with them? No more experiments?”

The anger flashed through him at those words once again. Zola was gone but poor Bucky was still HYDRA’s guinea pig and it was Steve’s fault.

“No experiments. We’re going to get you to a doctor. Everything will be alright.” Steve held his hand out, waiting.

Bucky hesitated for a long moment before setting his hand on top of Steve’s. It was slow going pulling him up to his feet because any sudden movement seemed to send shots of pain through Bucky. Steve stepped in close and slipped an arm around Bucky’s shoulder to support his weight. They slipped through the bars sideways and moved carefully around the unconscious form of Rumlow and the doctor.

Natasha and Sam were already outside the base and at the car waiting when Steve and Bucky emerged from the building. Sam took one look at Steve half carrying Bucky along before crossing the space between them to slip up under Bucky’s other arm and helping him to the car. Natasha did nothing, said nothing, as they came closer. Somehow he’d expected her to make some subtly sarcastic comment about picking up strays, or finding more fossils, something.

Instead, her eyes widened and then narrowed on Bucky’s face.

“Alright boys, everyone in the car,” she said, slipping into the driver’s seat. "Police are on their way."

Sam pulled open the back door and helped Bucky fumble his way into the car. He spared a moment of silent eye contact with Steve, one eyebrow raised in a wordless “you are going to explain this to me later, right?” before clapping Steve on the back and sliding in next to Natasha.

“We need to take him to a hospital,” Steve said.

Sam nodded, but Natasha remained silent. It was unusual. Not that she as the most talkative person on the planet, but she would normally have something to say about Steve coming out of a secret HYDRA base with a man whose name decorated every SHIELD memorial in the country.

Pressure on his shoulder pulled Steve away from his confusion. Bucky slumped against his side, eyes closed. Something like panic flashed through Steve, numbing his fingers with adrenalin as he spun in his seat to check Bucky’s breathing. It was even, calm, deep. For all intents and purposes, it looked like he’s simply fallen asleep sitting there next to Steve.

“Your new friend asleep?” Sam asked. He craned around in his seat to glance back at Steve and Bucky.

“Looks like it.” Steve brushed the hair back from Bucky’s forehead. His skin felt hot and clammy all at once. They needed to get him to a doctor as soon as possible. He never got a chance to have Bucky properly checked out when they escaped from Zola’s lab and the HYDRA base back in the war, there simply hadn’t been more than an army medic around and no one short of the doctor that gave Steve his serum would have been able to really determine if Bucky was alright.

“I’ll feel much better once we get him to a doctor,” he added.

Sam gave a sharp nod of agreement. “Sounds like you know this guy. He a member of your club too?” he asked.

“His name is Bucky. He was by best friend. I thought he died during the war.”

There was a moment of silence as Sam glanced between Bucky’s sleeping form and Steve’s face. He knew he was smiling, couldn’t help himself at this point. Bucky was alive. 

“That isn’t your friend, Steve.”

Natasha sounded like it hurt to say the words, but they were firm none the less.

“I know you’re skeptical but—“ Steve began. Natasha cut him off.

“His name is Thomas Hammond. He’s the son of former President Bud Hammond and current Secretary of State Elaine Barrish. He’s been missing since the night the president was declared dead,” she said.

Steve shook his head. Natasha was smart; she knew the ins and outs of intelligence gathering. But she was skeptical. He didn’t blame her for it. It was kind of a unique perspective to wake up after being frozen for the better part of seventy years. Steve was far more willing to believe that Bucky somehow froze as well than he was willing to think that someone else was born that looked exactly like his best friend.

Natasha reached down near her hip, the back of her seat blocking his line of sight until her hand emerged again gripping her phone. She glanced away from the road long enough to sweep her finger across the screen in a complicated pattern and then handed the phone to Sam.

“Search Hammond press conference,” she said.

Sam nodded and did as he was instructed. His brows climbed high almost as soon as sound started to play on the phone. He passed the phone sideways over the seat to Steve.

He had a video pulled up on the screen. It depicted a red haired woman standing before a podium. Despite the practical, hard lines of her suit, she looked frazzled standing there in front of the crowd off screen. Beside her was a man—also in a suit— who had a green tinge to his pale skin.

“Please, in light of all that has happened in this country over the last few weeks, I’m not asking you to return my son as a figure of authority. I’m asking you as a mother, whoever you are. No questions asked, no charges pressed. We just want our baby back,” she said.

And suddenly her eyes were hard. “Please,” she repeated. She said it in the same frazzled, worried tone she’d said everything else, but there was a look on her face that Steve had only ever seen on Peggy, back when she was about ready to chomp down on something and never let go. Steve had no doubt that if this woman had been the one to find that cell there wouldn’t have been enough of Rumlow or the doctor for the police to find.

The image on the screen flashed to a reporter, holding her microphone close to her face as she stared with poorly concealed glee into the camera. “That was the scene here in Washington earlier today. Secretary of State Barrish and former President Bud Hammond once again making a passionate plea for the return of their son; thirty-year-old Thomas “TJ” Hammond. No comment was made regarding the allegation that Thomas Hammond may have vanished under his own free will and no comment was made regarding the possibility of drugs being involved.”

The image changed even as the reporter spoke. In place of her face, photographs flashed. They were all Bucky. Bucky coming out of a club at night, Bucky squinting into the camera, Bucky pulling on his shirt and looking thoroughly disheveled. He looked young in most of them, younger than he was now, younger even than he had been when he was shipped overseas.

“How...how is that possible?” Steve felt the phone slip from his fingers to clatter against the floor of the car. “He said he knew me.”

“Steve, you’re Captain America. Your name, your face, everything has been in textbooks for years. There are songs written about you,” Natasha said like an apology.

“She’s right, man,” Sam said. He reached up and rubbed the back of his head.

The figure leaning against Steve’s shoulder sniffed. Bucky’s soft hair brushed against the underside of Steve’s chin, Bucky's warm breath danced against his skin.

But this wasn't Bucky.

It couldn't be.

Somewhere between the video starting and ending Natasha pulled into the emergency drop-off zone of a hospital. Steve didn’t know which one, he hadn’t been paying attention. He always paid attention to his surroundings, it was a habit he’d developed during basic training back before the serum. No sooner had she thrown the car into part than two hospital attendants--they were dressed in scrubs--came rushing out.

The man who was not Bucky jerked upright. His head hit the glass of the window and his arms flailed. One wild blow caught Steve along the jaw and snapped his head back the way no normal human’s punch had been able to since he was small. He could feel the bruise forming even as a heel smashed into his shins. That hurt too. There was no coordination to his flailing, no real strength behind his attacks, but TJ Hammond still managed to make every blow that landed before Steve could catch his wrists hurt.

Could they have done the same thing to this poor kid (there was no way he was older than twenty-five, no matter what the news reporter said) what they had tried to do to...Bucky?

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Steve said, ignoring the way his jaw twinge with each word he spoke. “You’re safe, remember?”

TJ pulled against Steve’s hold and nearly broke the gentle grip keeping his fists down. His eyes looked haunted, like there were grim images from the front lines hiding behind them and playing on repeat as TJ took in Natasha and Sam in the front seat. Natasha spared a moment to catch Steve’s eye before sliding fluidly out of the car to face the two hospital attendants.

“We need a wheelchair. We have an injured man here,” she said, in a tone that made it very clear she expected her command to be carried out at once.

“You’re at the hospital. We’ll make sure they contact your family. Everything is going to be fine,” Sam said from the front seat as he too opened the door.

TJ blinked, breaths coming in hard pants. Finally, his eyes found Steve’s again and locked on. “Family?” he repeated. There was no recognition behind the word, no indication he was thinking of the red-haired woman or the sick-faced man from the video.

“Yeah, your family,” Steve said. His voice sounded thick, even to his own ears. He wasn’t going to cry. He hadn’t done that since Bucky died and he wasn’t going to start now. It wouldn’t be fair. It wasn’t TJ’s fault that he wasn’t a miracle Steve never should have let himself hope for.

The car door opened behind TJ. He nearly screamed as the two attendants in scrubs laid hands on him.

“It’s alright, they’re going to help you,” Steve said quickly.

“Don’t go.” TJ curled his hands into whatever straps and edges of Steve’s uniform he could reach and locked his grip.

He wasn’t Bucky, he couldn’t be if he was alive and taking pictures outside of nightclubs when he looked barely old enough to drink. But he looked like Bucky from before the war, before Zola’s lab, before he started to forget how to smile. It was Bucky when he was young and innocent, and Steve failed Bucky, but he could do this small thing for TJ.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A BIG thank you to Annaparma for editing this chapter. It has been made infinitely better now:)

Elaine wasn’t sure what she was expecting when she entered the hospital. The call said nothing other than the basic information- that TJ had been found and which hospital he was currently in. The doctors weren’t available to tell her if her son was alright, and the attendant on the other end of the line had sounded too frantic and distracted to string together anything more cohesive that the most basic of information. It worried Elaine. Hospitals were never calm, she knew that after having sat beside her son’s sickbed more than once, but the voice on the other end of the line had been positively frightened. Hospitals shouldn’t induce fear in their staff.

So, Elaine told herself she wasn’t expecting anything, she didn’t have time to think about how terrible a condition a person must be in to make a hospital staff member sound like they had seen a ghost. She grabbed Bud from her living room where he had made camp for the last two weeks and rushed out the door. Douglas and Anne she called from the car because she knew how worried they had both been—enough to cancel the short honeymoon TJ himself had talked them into booking the day before he disappeared. When she knew more, they would too.

Her Secret Service detail, Phillip and Stanley, followed her and Bud into the hospital, looking this way and that, stiff and tense. The last two weeks had been terrible for their agents. With SHIELD not only coming out of the shadows, but coming out on fire and dragging HYDRA along with it, Elaine imagined it must look to them like threats were everywhere. She didn’t care, not right now. Right now all she wanted was to see her son, assure herself he was alive and well.

The image of TJ, pale and still in the front seat of his car, garage door closed and engine running, flashed through her head for the thousandth time.

He’d been through so much. So much. He didn’t deserve this too. If there was one thing Elaine was absolutely certain of, regardless of the reporters and their nasty implications, it was that her son had not run away, had not wandered off in some drug induced haze. He had been taken, kidnapped right from his bed, right from her home where her children should be safe.

As they reached TJ’s room, the Secret Service men darted in front of Elaine and her ex-husband. Two people dressed in civilian clothing stood on either side of the closed door. One was a tall, dark man who immediately stood at attention when he caught sight of the Secretary of State and former President, but didn’t seem all that concerned with two angry Service members. He was vaguely familiar to Elaine, she was positive she’d seen his picture somewhere before…something to do with the military back when Bud was in office? The woman standing beside him was far easier to place. She was small, pale, red-haired, and gave absolutely no indication that she cared about any of the people now coming to cluster around the door (Elaine resolutely ignored her bodyguard’s gesture to stay back). Natasha Romanoff was making a name for herself, defending her fellow SHIELD agents and condemning HYDRA with the cool certainty and self-assurance that few women her age could match when seated before a congressional committee dedicated to finding fault.

“You need to be briefed before you can go in,” she said, eyes locked on Elaine. She paid Bud no more mind than she did the two men with guns standing before her.

“Who are you to try and stop us from seeing our son? Get out of the way,” Bud snapped. His accent always grew thicker when he was angry, the southern drawl turning into something cloying and hard like frozen molasses.

Romanoff’s eyes darted to Bud, sizing him up. Whatever she saw was unimpressive, because she turned her focus again to Elaine.

“We found your son at an operational HYDRA facility here in the city.” There was no preamble, no sugar coating.

Something like a blow to the chest landed and Elaine felt herself stagger back a step. Bud’s hands found her elbow, offering what support he could. HYDRA. Everyone knew about them, in the same way that any child knew who the Nazis were even before they learned about them in school. TJ had nightmares for weeks after they introduced the WWII history unit in class and started talking about the sort of terrible things the organization had done with the Nazi’s blessing. And now, now it looked like her little baby had an actual reason to fear HYDRA and she hadn’t been there to calm his fear and Elaine found it hard to breathe, head spinning.

She’d known it was a possibility, had even suspected deep in her heart that the two might be connected after the untimely death of the president and the subsequent crashing of three massive ships in the Potomac. But it was one thing to guess and another to have the suspicion confirmed. The only question was, why? Why bother kidnapping her son? What did an organization like HYDRA want with her child? TJ was no threat to them, no threat to anyone at all really, other than himself. Or was it somehow meant to hurt her?

“He’s confused and scared.” The man beside Romanov spoke for the first time. “We aren’t exactly sure what was done to him, but your son is having a real hard time sorting his memories out right now,” He had a good voice, very soothing.

It did not soothe Elaine.

“What are you saying? Why are you telling us this before we can even go in?” Elaine asked. She pulled away from Bud and forced the pounding in her heart to the back burner. She could be furious and terrified for her son later. Right now practicality was the rule of the day. Find out all she needed to know and then use it to help comfort her baby. These people knew more about the situation than she did, loathe as she was to admit it, so their recommendations should be given weight.

“Move slow. Try not to be too loud or too fast. He’s scared and confused. Your son might not recognize you right away. The most important thing is to keep him calm,” the man said.

“Why?” Bud demanded. His bodyguard glowered at Romanoff as Bud moved into her personal space, trying to use his considerable height and considerable girth to intimidate her out of the way.

She gave no indication that she noticed his attempt, but she did answer the question. “TJ’s having a little trouble gauging his own strength right now. Your son broke a nurse’s collar bone on accident when he tried to insert an IV and nearly did the same to one of the doctors.”

That was the last straw. Elaine didn’t wait for them to tell her there were more rules, more information they needed to impart before she could walk into the room. The man and Romanoff stepped to the side to allow her to slip between them, Bud at her heels. Inside the room was dimly lit, but the blinds were thrown wide to let what was left of the afternoon sun in. The steady beeping of a heart monitor nearly drowned out the soft voices coming from the single bed. TJ was curled up on his side to face the window, his back to the door. It was not, however, the window that held his attention. It was instead the very large, very blond man dressed in very tight, very patriotic colors.

Captain America looked up over her son’s shoulder as Elaine and Bud stepped fully into the room. He snapped his mouth shut and rose at once, lifting out of his seat and shifting his arm enough so that she could see his hand leave the spot where it rested on the bed. Elaine pointedly did not wonder if Captain American (she hated calling him that, even within the confines of her own mind, it seemed so childish. She wanted to call him Steve Rogers, but the press had a field day anytime anyone called America’s hero by something other than his most formal title) had been holding her son’s hand.

TJ flinched at Captain America’s quick motion, to which Captain America immediately dropped the hard-backed, straight shouldered attention he gave to Elaine and Bud. Instead, every line of his body seemed to soften and he set one of his large hands on TJ’s shoulder. Almost instantly the air of tension around TJ began to ease. Captain America’s thumb rubbed a soothing little circle into the fabric of her son’s hospital gown.

The image of Sean Reeves suddenly flashed through her mind and Elaine might have just developed a hatred for Captain America. This wouldn’t be the first time someone took advantage of TJ’s need for affection.

“Remember how I was telling you your family was on their way?” Captain America asked. He sounded soothing too. Not as soothing as the man in the hallway, but he did a good job of coming close. “They’re here now. You ready to see them?”

TJ glanced over the shoulder Captain America still had his hand on. His eyes first darted to Bud and there wasn’t the slightest trace of recognition in them but on Elaine they paused. TJ turned over and sat up, using Captain America’s arm for support. Once he was upright, TJ let his hand drift closer to Captain America’s hip, like he needed the touch to ground him. Like this man he’d never met before today was more trustworthy than she was. There were tears in Elaine’s eyes and no amount of blinking could make them go away.

He didn’t recognize her. He didn’t recognize Bud. His own mother and father, and there was not a lick of familiarity on his face. Oh, his face. It looked like they hadn’t fed him in the two weeks TJ have been gone. There were dark bags under his eyes and his hair was a dirty, disheveled mess. Bruises littered his arms, exposed by the short hospital gown’s sleeves. They were green, which meant they ran deep and, with TJ, meant they could very easily indicate fractured bones or internal injury. TJ never knew when he was really hurt, always had to have someone point out to him that whatever fall he had taken was bad, whatever cut he received was deep. Since he was a little boy it always seemed like TJ just didn’t register pain the way other people did. It used to worry Elaine, back before TJ gave her other, more pressing issues to focus on.

Where was the doctor?

“TJ, sweetie. Are you alright?” she asked. She spread her arms wide and walked to the bed at a much slower pace than the run she wanted.

TJ glanced up at Captain America, who gave an encouraging smile and nodded. There was a bruise on the Captain’s jaw that Elaine hadn’t noticed from where she stood by the door. If he’d done anything other than talk to her son when TJ was hurt, confused, and frightened, there would be more than a bruise there soon, America’s hero or no.

“I…I think I know you?” TJ said it like a question, voice small and raw. Elaine fought back the sob that wanted to break free.

The closer she got to his bed the tenser TJ became. He pressed his spine back against the headboard and inched closer to Captain America and maybe it wasn’t fair, the instant dislike Elaine felt for Captain America because of that little motion, but this was her little boy growing more and more terrified by her approach.

“Yes. Yes, you know me. I’m your mother,” she forced herself to say, like having to tell her son that didn’t make a little part of Elaine’s soul die. But she could do this, she could keep a smile on her face when her insides were in turmoil. She’d done it hundreds of times with heads of state too scared or too set in their ways to give Elaine what she wanted. She was a rock and nothing but the dampness on her checks hinted otherwise.

She knelt beside the bed and placed her hands palms down on to the mattress. It might make TJ feel safer, more in control, if she wasn’t towering over him. They stayed like that for a cluster of very long heart beats, Elaine watching TJ and TJ watching Elaine before his hand inched out. For one glorious moment she thought he was going to hug her but instead TJ fingered a strand of her hair and fiddled with it, drawing the lock closer to his face.

“I remember this,” he half whispered, sounding awed.

“You always liked to play with my hair when you were little,” Elaine chocked out through a tight throat.

TJ looked from the hair to her face, eyes searching, searching so hard, and then she saw it. She saw the moment something clicked inside his head and the confusion dropped away, replaced instead with a wide-eyed look of hope and fear that made her baby suddenly so much younger than his thirty years.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, sweetie, it’s me.” Elaine leaned across the bed and wrapped her arms carefully around his shoulders. TJ clung to her, burying his face in the curve between her neck and shoulder. His arms slipped around her back and waist. The embrace hurt a little, his fingers digging into her flesh even through the suit jacket but Elaine wasn’t going to say anything about it.

“Son,” Bud said. Elaine hadn’t heard him come closer but he was there now, throwing his long arms around them both and squeezing.

The reaction was instant. TJ went stiff as stone beneath her arms. She could actually feel the way his skin shifted as he flinched. It was an accident, she could tell the motion was unintentional as soon as it happened, but that did nothing to dull the pain of TJ’s arms locking around her body in a crushing grip, or the sharp bite of his fingers digging into her shoulder. A gasp escaped before she could bite it off and TJ jerked backers, wrenching himself away from Elaine and Bud both.

He had his hands up, fingers splayed and eyes wide. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said at once. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident, I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

It looked like he was going to cry. Unacceptable. Her son was not going to be made to cry when Elaine and Bud had both been told not to make any sudden moves and then went right ahead and did just that. It wasn’t his fault.

“It’s okay, you didn’t hurt me at all,” she lied with a smile. “I was just surprised, your father isn’t normally one for group hugs.”

She glanced back at Bud, trying to telegraph without giving anything away that she wasn’t blaming him either. Bud had a tendency to think the worst when it came to Elaine’s opinions on his interactions with their oldest son. He alternated between extreme defensiveness and extreme guilt, like he expected at any moment to be raked over the coals for some imagined wrongdoing. If not for the fact that the habit had started long before their time in the White House and long before TJ came out, she would have attributed it to some latent discomfort over their son’s dating preferences.

“I apologize for being late,” a new voice said from the doorway.

Elaine twisted around to find not only the elusive doctor—a young woman with sharply angled glasses perched on the edge of her nose—but the two Secret Service men as well as Romanoff and her partner. Counting Captain America, that made five people that did not need to be in this room right now watching her son fight off a panic attack brought on by a hug. The doctor did not give any indication that she cared the typical “family only” rule was flagrantly being broken.

“Are you feeling any calmer now, Thomas?” the doctor asked, looking up from the clipboard full of notes she held in her hands.

TJ gave his head a hard shake. His eyes were wide and his lips were pressed tightly together despite how quickly he tried to breathe in and out through his nose. The doctor gave a small hum in the back of her throat and finally took stock of the room, before addressing Bud and Elaine directly.

“Madam Secretary, Mr. President, may I request you send your men outside? Specifically, I’d like you to keep them out of sight for the time being.”

Bud gave a huff, drawing himself up to be big and loud because that was what he always did when he wanted to get his way and didn’t think sweet seductions would work. Big and loud were not what TJ needed right now.

“Yes.” Elaine cut him off. “Philip, Stanley? Can you stay outside the door?”

She liked to phrase things as a request sometimes when speaking with the Secret Service. It made her feel like she was giving the men and women that protected her a little more freedom, even if they knew it wasn’t really a request.

Philip and Stanley exchanged unamused glances and then looked pointedly back towards Romanoff and her companion.

It was clear that they had no intention of leaving the room while Romanoff and the man (Elaine needed to get his name) were still there. It was equally clear that Romanoff wasn’t going to move unless someone other than Elaine or Bud asked her to budge. She actually shifted her feet into a firmer stance in a move that would have been casual if not for the way her eyes lingered on Phillip and his angry frown.

“I need some coffee,” Romanoff’s companion said. He places his hands gingerly on her shoulders and Romanoff allowed herself to be steered away from the brewing confrontation. “Nat here is going to help me get coffee. Steve, how about you too? Anyone else want coffee?”

Steve? Interesting. Elaine would have to look up this man as soon as she got the chance. He had to be someone from the military or SHEILD if he was running in the same circle as Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers. It spoke volumes that he not only felt comfortable enough with his position to call Rogers by his given name, he felt comfortable enough to do it in front of Heads of State.

But he was trying to give them privacy while TJ fell apart and for that Elaine was nothing but grateful.

“Yeah…okay,” Rogers (if this man was going to set the precedence of calling Captain America by his name, then Elaine would do no less) said. He glanced between TJ pressed back into the headboard of his bed and now gulping for air, to the door and his companions, one of whom was gesturing for Rogers to hurry up. “I can go get some coffee too.”

TJ made a high, panicked sound as soon as Rogers stepped away from the bed.

“I’d like the Captain to stay,” the doctor said firmly and then closed the door on the man, Romanoff and both Secret Service agents.

“Now see here just a minute—“ Bud growled.

The doctor spoke over him. “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s a precaution we have to take. Thomas, I need you to take a deep breath. I’m going to give you something to help you calm down,” she added, pulling a syringe from her coat pocket.

TJ flung himself from the bed, or he tried to. His legs tangled in the sheets and Rogers swooped in to catch him before he could hit the ground.

“No, no, no. Please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m—“ TJ sobbed, struggling to pull himself away from Rogers even as the doctor injected whatever was in the syringe straight into the IV drip connected to TJ’s wrist.

Rogers set TJ back on the bed but did not try to disentangle them. He allowed TJ to wrap his arms tight around his waist and press his face into his stomach. Rogers glanced up and he looked the way Elaine felt, sitting there with TJ crying in his lap. Like someone had reached into his chest and ripped out his heart. One hand held TJ close while the other pet his hair in soft strokes.

“She’d not HYDRA, I promise. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” Rogers said.

Beside her, Bud gave a small choked sob and turned away.

Fine. She got it, she really did. It was agony looking at her son clinging to a stranger because he was afraid of the people in the room with him, but Elaine wasn’t going to avert her eyes. She was going to bear witness to every second of this, soak in every bit of pain, and when she got the chance she was going to remember the way this felt, like she was raw and broken and bleeding, and then she would use that pain to destroy the people who hurt her child.

“What happened to my son?” Elaine asked. She rounded on the doctor.

“First, I have to apologize again. I’ve yet to introduce myself. I’m Dr. Sohail, I specialize in neurological trauma,” the doctor said, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. She offered her hand to Bud, the closest to where she stood by the door, but he did not take it.

Instead, Bud demanded, “Neurological trauma? What do you mean, neurological trauma?” He was ready for a fight, chest still puffed out and hands clenching and unclenching, like yelling was somehow going to change the diagnoses.

Dr. Sohail glanced at her clipboard, flipping pages. Elaine crossed to the side of the bed TJ and Rogers occupied while she did so. Rogers watched her come, looking guilty as sin. Did he feel bad that a stranger’s son found more comfort in him than in his own parents or was he somehow blaming himself for this whole situation? It wasn’t like Rogers had much of a choice. Elaine had read the reports, had needed something to get her mind off of her growing worry for TJ (they said if you didn’t find the person in the first forty-eight hours hope was very slim). If Rogers and his associates hadn’t destroyed those ships a lot of people would be dead right now, herself included for all Elaine knew.

The doctor cleared her throat, drawing Elaine’s attention back.

“It looks like severe damage was sustained in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. I was late because I was examining the CAT scans we took just before you arrived,” Dr. Sohail added. She displayed a black and white photocopy of a brain scan, one of the ones that looked more like an x-ray than anything else.

“He let you do a scan?” The incredulous tone was accompanied by an equally incredulous eyebrow raise as Bud looked over his shoulder to Elaine. She chose to very carefully reach out and rub at the base of TJ’s neck with the soft pad of her fingers. When he was little, TJ used to have a lot of nightmares—about falling, about drowning, about a man with a metal arm—and it used to help soothe his fear when she rubbed the tense muscles clustered where neck and spine met.

Dr. Sohail shook her head. “He was sedated. He’d already broken a nurse’s collarbone and sprained his primary doctor’s wrist. We had to ask the Captain to stay so your son wouldn’t hurt himself or any of us by accident. His metabolism is on overdrive right now, he burned through the sedative by the time the scan was completed.”

It made Elaine ache and burn all at once. She continued her soft strokes. TJ pulled his face away from Roger’s stomach to watch her, damp trail of tears smeared across his cheeks. 

“’m sorry, Mom,” he said. The words were very soft and deeply slurred. Whatever sedative they gave him was working. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. It was an accident.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. We’ll let them know you didn’t mean it,” Elaine said. She would say anything TJ needed to hear at this point if it made even a fraction of the haunted look leave his eyes.

Dr. Sohail pressed her lips together, brows drawn low in sympathy. It was a humanizing gesture, the little look of empathy for TJ’s pain. 

Elaine’s opinion of the doctor rose. 

“The trauma to his prefrontal cortex is consistent with lightning strike victims, but there is no other evidence anywhere on Thomas that electricity entered his body,” Dr. Sohail said, pulling her focus back to he notes. “There are no superficial wounds, no burst capillaries, nothing at all but the trauma in his brain.”

She looked up and made eye contact first with Bud—he grew pale and haggard with each new word—and then with Elaine. “I can’t explain the injury, none of us can, but I can state that it’s the most likely cause of the memory loss.”

“Give it to me straight, doctor. Will our son be alright? Are his memories gone for good?” And that was the presidential tone, the one that demanded answers, and quickly. It was the tone Elaine used to love, before the affairs and even for a good while after the divorce.

Dr. Sohail shook her head. “I can’t give you any certainties. Some memories may return as time passes and the injury heals, but the damage to his brain is severe.”

Bud threw the photocopied scans back onto the doctor’s clipboard and began to pace. Like a great lion trapped in a small cage, he stomped back and forth, back and forth. There was something going on here, something more than just his worry over TJ. Elaine new Bud well enough to understand what guilt looked like on him and it was never pretty. It tended to make him lash out at those around him before he settled into the emotion and owned up to whatever he wanted to apologize for. Maybe this was because of the night club. TJ had been so excited, so focused on making the idea work, had wanted so badly to impress them with something all his own, outside of their sphere of politics, and Bud had shot him down. Bud had refused to go to the club’s opening, had thrown around words like “addict” and “disappointment” until TJ’s sponsor let slip Sean Reeves’ invitation and all the bad things his name evoked.

“Dr. Sohail, please show my husband the original scans. I want you to go over every bit of information you have and whatever our next step in helping our son is going to be. Have the police taken his statement yet?” Elaine asked. She did not stop her ministrations, but she did let some of the tone she used with lobbyists slip out. She wanted Bud out of the room before he agitated TJ again and she wanted answers, this would kill two birds with one stone.

Dr.Sohail nodded. “Yes, the police came just before you did.”

And left just as quickly. Almost like they didn’t want to talk to Elaine or Bud. Why?

Bud shot her a hard, knowing look. There was no fooling him, he understood exactly what she was trying to do, but he didn’t question the decision either. Instead, he opened the door and gestured with a stiff gallantry for Dr. Sohail to precede him.

“I’ll be back, son,” he said.

TJ nodded against Roger’s stomach and did not look away from Elaine. Once the door closed and the three of them were alone, he closed his eyes and seemed to sag. Rogers tipped his head towards the pillow, brows raised and eyes wide in question. Elaine nodded. She helped pull the tangled sheets back and waited while Rogers shifted TJ up higher on the bed so that his head rested on the pillow. TJ’s eyes popped open again, darted to them both, and then closed with a sigh.

“Thought I was dreaming,” he muttered as Elaine pulled the sheets up to his shoulders. “Thought I was still there. Thought they were taking things out and putting new things in.”

She didn’t want to ask, but she needed to know. God help her, if Elaine was going to help her son she had to know what was done to him first. “Putting new what in where, sweetheart?”

TJ rolled onto his side, facing her now and not Rogers. A quick glance confirmed what Elaine already suspected. Rogers was looking at the vacant stretch of mattress between TJ’s back and his hands like he didn’t know what to do with the space.

“New memories. They kept trying to take the old ones,” TJ muttered into his pillow, eyes still closed.

That made no sense. It wasn’t possible to reach into someone’s head and extract memories…Then again, it was impossible to freeze a man for seventy odd years and then thaw him out and have him be good as new. It was impossible for a bunch of aliens to try and take over New York City, and it was impossible for gods of thunder to run around England causing collateral damage. A lot of impossible things had been happening lately, and her son might have just found himself caught up in the impossibility of it all.

“You’re safe now. No one it going to try and take anything from you,” Elaine said. She reached out and brushed a strand of dirty hair away from his face.

TJ gave a small ghost of a smile. The sedatives had done their job, at least for the moment. His eyes were closed and his breathing was growing deeper, calmer, as sleep pulled him gently deeper into the pillow and sheets. “They can take the camping trip out. Too much snow. Too close to the train tracks.”

Elaine nodded, even though he couldn’t see her and she had no idea what trip he was talking about. She waited for a good five minutes after she was certain TJ was asleep before she allowed herself to turn her focus onto Steve Rogers. He and his companions saved her son, she owed him her gratitude and more. It didn’t stop her from asking what needed to be asked. There had been too many men with power –Bud, Sean Reeves, now HYDRA—who had hurt her son in ways small and large for her to not ask, to not be sure this clinging to Rogers wasn’t the sign of something worrisome.

TJ used to have a poster of Captain America over his bed when he was little. It helped ease some of the nightmares when Elaine told him Captain America would fight off Nazis and HYDRA alike if they came too close. There was something morbidly ironic knowing now that she’d been telling an eleven-year-old TJ the truth.

“What is your relationship with my son, Captain Rogers?” she asked, going for a comfortable middle ground between respect and familiarity.

Rogers looked startled by the question. He blinked rapidly, glancing from TJ’s sleeping form to Elaine. She kept her expression neutral and closed off. It tended to intimidate people into telling the truth more often than not.Unless they were TJ, who had always seemed immune to the look.

“I-I’m not sure what you mean, ma’am. I just wanted to make sure he was alright,” said Rogers, fiddling with his gloved fingers.

Lie. “Let me be blunt. TJ is over-fond of attention at the best of times and has had a case of hero-worship for you in the past. Right now he is frightened, hurt, and confused. If you did anything at all to my son to take advantage of that I will bury you so far in the ground they’ll have to erase your name from the history books.”

For a long moment Rogers did nothing. He stared at her with eyes wide as dinner plates, the fiddling fingers now still and stiff on the edge of the bed. And then his brows slipped down into a deep, serious frown. He leaned forward just slightly, locking their eyes together.

“I would never take advantage of someone’s need for safety after something as terrible as what your son went through. I meant what I told TJ; I want to protect him. I don’t know why, ma’am, but HYDRA went after your son. I’m pretty sure they gave him some version of the serum I’ve got, which means if they can get their hands on him again they’re certainly going to try,” Rogers said. It sounded more heartfelt than anything Elaine had heard on the Hill. It shouldn’t alleviate her fears, Rogers could just be a good liar. Somehow, it didn't sound like anything other than honesty, and it eased some of the tension in her gut. Elaine Barrish wasn’t one to get swept away by public opinion, but this time the public might be right. She might truly believe that the greatest soldier the country has ever had wanted nothing more than to protect her son.

Still, she had to ask. She was a realist, after all.

“It has nothing to do with the fact that he looks similar to your old friend?” Depending on his answer she would know how honest a man Steve Rogers truly was. If it was something TJ’s classmates were quick to point out during their WWII unit it had to be something Steve Rogers noticed as well.

Rogers glanced away, down to TJ again. Raw hurt seeped from every line of his overly patriotic suit, but when he looked back up at her there was nothing but earnestness in Rodger’s eyes.

“It had a lot to do with that, ma’am. TJ reminds me of my friend. I-I couldn’t help my friend when it mattered most, and I don’t want to fail anyone else when all I have to do is reach out and stop them from falling.”

Good enough. Honest. More so than Elaine would ever be with him if their situations were reversed.

“Thank you, Captain Rogers—" she began.

“Steve. Please. You can call me Steve,” Rogers said, looking suddenly bashful. She couldn’t fathom the reason for the look now of all times, but it was surprisingly endearing. She could see why SHEILD wanted Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff’s face on the posters for their little catastrophe. It was hard to be angry at people with faces like theirs, even when they deserved it.

“Thank you, Steve. For saving my son, for bringing him back to us,” she said.

Steve ducked his head and nodded. Some private struggle was going on and Elaine would pay him the kindness of not pointing it out.

“Do they have any extra blankets here? In the room, I mean? Because I can go get him more,” Rogers asked suddenly, glancing up through his lashes at her.

Elaine shrugged. The room had no cabinets in it, nowhere she could imagine a spare blanket being kept. “We’ll have to ask. Why?”

Steve fiddled with the sheet on the bed and watched TJ. It was nothing like the way the boys and men TJ tended to gravitate towards looked at him, like they were waiting the suck the marrow from his bones if give half an opportunity. Steve looked at TJ like he was afraid the glance would hurt.

“He just sounded cold, I suppose. Talking about snow and camping.”

“TJ’s never gone camping, especially not in the winter,” Elaine said distractedly, considering pressing the call button to get a blanket. The room was a little chilly, now that Steve mentioned it.

A knock sounded on the door and without waiting for confirmation it opened a moment later. Romanoff stood there, two paper cups of coffee steaming in her hands.

“Come on, you need to caffeinate if you plan on playing guard all night,” she said first to Steve, holding out one of the cups. Steve waited until Elaine gave a nodded before standing and slipping silently to the door. A man that large should not be able to move that softly.

“Sam wants you in the cafeteria, end of the hallway. He says you need to eat something,” Romanoff continued, though now she sounded mildly amused.

Steve hesitated. “Go,” Elaine said. “We’ll be fine.”

“I’ll sit with them while you’re gone,” Romanoff added and that was enough to seal the deal. Steve nodded, promised he’d be back soon and, with one last lingering look towards the bed, turned from the room and marched himself out into the hallway.

Romanoff watched him go, the amused glint still in her eyes. She closed the door firmly but silently. These people moved like sound was optional and it would be unnerving if Elaine let herself think about it for more than the moment it took to notice the lack of anything to notice.

“How’s Thomas doing?” Romanoff asked, moving to take Steve’s vacant seat beside the bed.

“That’s not what you got us alone to talk about.” 

Elaine wasn’t new at this. She could spot a setup when she saw one. Romanoff smiled. She might have been genuinely pleased that the ruse had been found out or she might be faking it in order to inflate Elaine’s ego. It was hard to tell with people like her.

“I am interested in his wellbeing, but no, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted you to know, we know what happened to bring the late president's plane down.” Romanoff tipped the chair back onto two legs and squinted at the door. After a moment she focused on Elaine again.

“HYDRA assassinated the president. Someone in the administration is a traitor.”


	4. Chapter 4

“How’s your boy doing?” Sam asked once Steve had settled himself into the chair opposite him. It was too small, with the backrest pressing uncomfortably under the bend in Steve’s spine, but there was nothing to be done about it. All of the chairs in the cafeteria were the exact same size and shade of off-brown, like they had been left in the sun too long, until the color bled out of them.

It wasn’t the happiest of comparisons.

Steve shrugged and stabbed at his food with the tips of his flat fork. “He’s sleeping now. His mother’s with him and the doctors are going over what happened to him as best they can. Natasha is with them to keep an eye on everything while we’re here.”

“So, is he your boy then?” Sam asked. He raised an eyebrow and sipped at his coffee in the paper cup.

Steve squirmed. It sounded so…possessive to think of TJ with that kind wording. He wasn’t Steve’s anything, and it might hurt to remind himself, but it was the truth. TJ wasn’t Bucky, and he didn’t know Steve. It was only reasonable that he would latch onto the person that got him out of that cell and away from HYDRA’s clutches. It made sense that he would feel safer with Captain America standing watch beside his bed. That didn’t mean he liked Steve, it meant he was smart enough to know he needed protection.

All of this was true, but it still would be so easy to let himself slip into old habits. He looked so much like Bucky, but it wouldn’t be fair for Steve to pretend for even a moment that TJ was anyone but TJ Hammond.

After talking with his mother, it kind of sounded like a lot of things for a long time hadn’t been fair to TJ.

“No, he’s not mine,” said Steve said at last. Sam gave no indication that he’d noticed the lingering pause between his question and Steve’s answer. It was a small act of kindness that Steve felt guilty for wanting but grateful for getting.

He shoveled food into his mouth and focused on the table top rather than Sam’s contemplative expression. If he was chewing he couldn’t answer any more questions.

Sam nodded. He looked past the table to the doors of the cafeteria and then back to Steve.

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Understandable. It’s going to be a little difficult to help your new friend if you’re all tangled up inside, though,” Sam replied.

Valid point but still not something Steve wanted to talk about. He didn’t know how he felt about the whole situation just yet and there was too much going on to try and parse it all out now. They had to figure out if there were any more active HYDRA bases in the city, they had to figure out if anyone else was going to come after TJ, they had to figure out what TJ’s strength was and how to help him learn to control it, they had to…there was just a lot. Too much to take the time to figure out how it felt to have a man with Bucky’s face cling to his side and cry.

Sam looked like he was going to say something else. He leaned forward in his chair, coffee cup tapping against the top of the table, and then whatever words he’d been preparing to let loose were drowned out by the high, shrill wail of a cell phone. Steve reached into one of the pouches on his suit while Sam fished around in his pants pocket until they both produced their phones. It was one of the oddities of the modern age—a phone rang and everyone within earshot assumed it was their own.

It was Steve’s cell this time, a practical “smartphone” that could call and search the internet if he needed, that blinked and rattled. The name Tony Stark was scrawled across the bottom of the phone’s screen, which was largely taken up by a photo of Tony grinning and dressed in a shirt that read I AM IRON MAN that Natasha set as his ID.

Steve shot an apologetic glance at Sam who waved the look away and gestured for Steve to answer the phone.

“Hel—“

“Cap, okay, good. This is the fifth time I called you in the last three hours. Really gotta get better about the whole answering the phone thing. Lots of people answer the phone, you could be one of them,” Tony rushed. It sounded like his normal rush, the general hundred miles a minute speech and not a panicked HYDRA-is-attacking sort of rush, so Steve let himself push the mass pretending to be mashed potatoes around on his plate.

“Sorry, we were a little busy,” he said.

Tony snorted. “Busy. Yeah, I know. Busy following the lead I gave you guys on HYDRA’s base because I’m a genius and actually bothered to go through all the information you dumped onto the internet. Which—surprise, surprise—it looks like there’s some stuff we need Nat to come and translate.”

Sam cocked his head to the side and lifted a brow high. He could probably hear at least bits of the conversation if not all of it. It was hard to gauge what normal hearing range was a lot of the time. Before the serum Steve had been mostly deaf in one ear and after the serum he could hear twice as well as everyone else around him except for Bucky.

“Why do you need Natasha? And why not call her about this.”

“Because it’s all in Russian and coded. JARVIS cracked the code and rearranged the digital documents to proper, indecipherable Cyrillic, but it’d go a lot faster if Nat were here to help guide him. I called you because when I called her she sent me straight to voicemail and sent a text that said she was looking after a fossil. With a smiley face. I could only assume she meant you. She uses that joke all the time.” There was clicking going on in the background.

“She’s keeping an eye on TJ Hammond. We found—“

“You found the Hammond kid in a HYDRA base? What did they want with him? Tips on partying? Where to find the best high?”

Anger shot through Steve. This was both the best and worst thing about Tony. He said what was on his mind. Whatever was on his mind, whenever it found its way there. After the whole New York alien invasion thing, Steve could find it in himself to see the good in something like that, the raw honesty when dealing with people like SHIELD who dealt in half-truths so often. The downside to that honesty was the resulting lack of tact that came with it.

“I’ll tell Natasha you called.”

“Are you mad? You’re mad. What did I say?”

“I’ll talk to you later, Tony.”

“Fine, fine. Send Nat over when she’s done babysitting.” And with that, Tony hung up. He very rarely said goodbye. Steve had heard him say it when speaking on the phone with Ms. Potts, but that was about it.

Steve set the phone down and took a deep breath. Tony wasn’t trying to pick a fight and he wasn’t trying to be mean to TJ. Or, maybe he was but he wouldn’t have if he knew the circumstances. Tony had been there, in TJ’s situation; if anyone could understand it would be him.

“That Tony Stark? The Tony Stark. Again?” Sam asked. He shrugged in a way that Steve was learning meant I-have-accepted-that-this-is-my-life-now. “What did he want? He find another HYDRA base?”

“No,” Steve said, still picking at the mashed potatoes. They more closely resembled glue than anything else. “He said he found another file he wants to have Natasha help him go over. It’s in Russian.”

“Well, you finish that food you’re playing with and then we’ll go tell the lady.”

With a renewed vigor, Steve shoveled the rest of the mystery meat and potatoes into his mouth and pushed away from the table. He collected his plate and the tray it sat on, set them on the trash can where the brightly colored laminated sign told him to and started towards the door. Sam walked beside him, setting an even pace that Steve forced himself to follow. It wasn’t that he wanted to run back to the room just to sit beside TJ’s bed while he slept…though he did want to get back to the room quickly. But Natasha could take care of things if anyone tried to hurt TJ or his parents, there was no reason to rush. Natasha was competent, deadly when she needed to be, but she wasn’t Steve and it was Steve that TJ clung to when he we afraid so maybe they should rush anyway. He could be awake and afraid already.

The sound of voices carried all the way down the hall. Sam gave a confused frown and picked up his pace. Steve half jogged, half ran to the door. The Secret Service men were no longer standing guard outside. He felt his stomach swoop down to his knees and slammed open the door.

“Wow there cowboy, take it down a notch,” Natasha said. She leaned up against the wall facing the door but out of the sight lights afforded by the window, arms crossed over her chest. She was perfectly at ease with the mass of people crowding the room. Both Mrs. Barrish and Mr. Hammond were there, as well as each of their Service men, but now there was an elderly woman dressed to the nines as well as a man and woman around Steve’s age all clustered around the bed. TJ was still asleep but he was frowning and it didn’t look like he’d remain so for much longer.

“Who is this?” the young woman asked. She pushed a strand of very straight, thick black hair behind one ear and moved closer to the man beside her. He, in turn, wrapped his arm around her very tiny waist and pulled her close.

“That’s-that’s Captain America,” the man said with wide-eyed shock.

Where they reporters? They couldn’t be. If they were, the Secret Service men would have thrown them out already and if the Secret Service men hadn’t Mrs. Barrish certainly would. The older woman stroked TJ’s hair while she watched him, her expression unreadable. It was Mrs. Barrish who stood up from her chair and walked to the door. She gestured for Steve and Sam to enter the room with one hand while waving at the gathered crowd with the other.

“This is my son, Douglas, and my daughter-in-law, Anne,” she said, gesturing to the young man and woman.

Something painful constricted in Steve’s chest.

Mrs. Barrish nodded her head to the woman beside the bed and added, “This is my mother, Ellen. TJ’s grandmother.”

Douglas. Anne. Ellen. TJ had a brother and a sister-in-law. Grandparents. People who were worried about him and cared for him. A support system. One that did not include Steve. One that didn’t need to include Steve.

“These are Ms. Romanoff’s associates, Captain Rogers and Sam Wilson,” Elaine went on. Natasha must have filled her in on Sam’s name because Steve couldn’t remember introductions occurring. Although, Elaine just seemed to know who everyone was, so maybe Natasha hadn’t needed to tell her anything.

“Captain America saved my brother from Nazis,” Douglas said, like he couldn’t quite trust his own words.

“Assuming Rogers didn’t have something to do with his getting snatched to begin with,” Mr. Hammond muttered. It was under his breath but loud enough that everyone in the room could hear what he’d said.

Douglas went stiff and locked his arm around Anne’s waist. She glanced quickly between her husband and father-i- law. Natasha straightened up from the wall and scowled at Mr. Hammond. It was one of her colder looks that generally surfaced only when subtle manipulation wouldn’t get her what she wanted. She’d had that look on her face when she kicked Jasper Sitwell off the roof, the catalyst for discovering what HYDRA was actually planning on doing with the Insight ships.

Ellen gave a snort from her position beside the bed. She waved her hands and fluttered her fingers in Mr. Hammond’s direction with irreverence. “Yes, because it sounds so reasonable to believe that the man who was frozen like a popsicle until two years ago woke up and decided to take down a corrupt government organization, but not until after he helped the kidnap your son. That makes perfect sense, I can see why the people chose you to lead, dear,” she said. It came out in a laugh but there was steel underneath the light tone.

Mr. Hammond swung around and glowered at Ellen. She returned the look impassively. Seeking someone else to loose his frustration on, Mr. Hammond turned from the bed and Ellen to instead march himself into Steve’s space. He came so close his belly almost grazed against Steve’s belt, his face twisted in anger. One thick finger jabbed into Steve’s shoulder.

“If you didn’t have something to do with it, why are you still here?” Mr. Hammond demanded, punctuating each word with another jab of his finger.

“We’re here because, for whatever reason, HYDRA hurt your son. We want to make sure they don’t get the opportunity to hurt him again,” Steve said. He forced himself to stay calm, keep his tone level and reasonable, but left no room for argument. He didn’t care if Bud Hammond liked him, he didn’t care if Elaine Barrish thought he had ulterior motives for wanting to help. All he cared about was making sure HYDRA didn’t get a chance to ruin TJ’s life the way they ruined so many others.

“They left him alone until you came back,” Mr. Hammond shouted, puffing his chest out more. He tried to push Steve back with the action and maybe Steve should have let him, should have given him that one little illusion of power, but he couldn’t. Steve’s head spun at the accusation. How could anyone think he would have anything to do with the organization that had taken so much from him?

But Bud Hammond’s words still wormed their way into his brain. HYDRA hadn’t done anything to TJ until Steve was back in the world. Did that make TJ’s kidnapping his fault? Did the two have something to do with each other? Would HYDRA go after TJ because he looked like Bucky? Would they even remember, so many years after the fact for them, that Steve nearly got himself court-martialed the first time they took Bucky? It made no logical sense. If their plan was to kidnap TJ to get at Steve, it relied on the assumption that Steve would find out they were holding TJ hostage and that Steve would care.

What if they took TJ and planned on trying to convince Steve he was actually Bucky? If that was true, everything that happened to TJ would be Steve’s fault. The same way Bucky’s death was Steve’s fault.

Mr. Hammond growled. He pushed Steve, putting all of his weight behind the action. Steve allowed his shoulders to give just enough to avoid hurting him but no more. Mr. Hammond stumbled back a step, the force of his attempted push backfiring on him. Sam immediately stepped in to fill the space. He had both hands up, trying to diffuse the situation before it got any worse.

“You’re upset. You have every right to be, but Steve isn’t the one you want to be angry with. Steve’s the reason your son is here, in this room, and not still with the bad guys. We were all there, all three of us,” Sam said, gesturing to himself and Natasha before nodding his head back to Steve, “and Steve was the one that found him. Steve saved your son’s life.”

A high, startled sound came from the bed. At once every head in the room turned. TJ was awake, pushing himself away from Ellen while sitting up. She had the foresight to pull her hand back and give him space, but she didn’t step away from the bed. Instead, she smiled and winked. Buc—TJ cocked his head to the side and blinked.

“Nice to have you back,” she said. Her voice choked off on the ‘back’ and she had to look down, away from the uncertainty and vague fear on her grandson’s face. A beat later the smile was back like it had never left. “How are you feeling?”

“Grandma?” TJ asked. He glanced first at his mother and then, inexplicably, Steve, seeking confirmation.

Ellen answered with a watery nod. “Got it in one,” she said. “Your brother and Anne too,” she added, pointing to Douglas and his wife.

Anne’s lips were trembling, and she took two very deep breaths before she could pull up a smile on par with Ellen’s. It was sweet and shaky but there. Steve wondered briefly if that’s the sort of look any of the girls Bucky used to go with would have given him, had he come home. Sort of like they were seeing a miracle and a hero all at once. It made him like Anne, the rush of affection coming hard and fast.

Douglas, on the other hand, gave a little sob and stepped up to the bed. He held his arms out and paused. “I’m going to hug you now. Is that alright?”

Once again TJ looked to his mother and then to Steve, both of whom nodded, before giving Douglas his own small nod of permission. Mr. Hammond gave Steve a look that could peel paint. Sam shifted forward and slightly to the right, blocking Steve from Mr. Hammond’s immediate line of sight.

Douglas flung his arms around his brother and pulled TJ in tightly. At first TJ did nothing, didn’t hug back, didn’t pull away, just sat there and watched Mrs. Barrish and Steve for signs that this was a mistake. A loud sniffle filled the room and Douglas curled closer. Steve could see the exact moment of recognition as a light turned on behind TJ’s eyes. His whole face seemed to shift, transformed from uncomfortable and tense to relieved. He dropped his head onto Douglas’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around his brother.

“I remember you. I remember you two getting married,” he said into the curve of Douglas’s shoulder.

It earned a happy, choked laugh. “That’s because you were there,” Douglas said. He pulled back, still smiling. He rubbed at his side, where TJ’s arms had pressed. TJ shrank at the sight.

“Did I hurt you? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—" he began hurriedly, but Douglas waved the concern away.

“We both know I’m a wimp.”

“Sometimes he bruises when I kiss him good morning,” Anne added helpfully.

TJ laughed. It sounded exactly like Bucky’s laugh.

Steve closed his eyes and told the ghosts to go away, just for a little while. He didn’t deserve it, but he needed it right now.

Three separate cell phones began to ring, one right after the other. Mrs. Barrish, Mr. Hammond, and Douglas each pulled their phone free and frowned at the screens. Steve counted it as a win that neither he nor Sam nor Natasha mistook the ring as their own. Mrs. Barrish allowed the hand holding her phone to drop to her side. She made a frustrated sound that was echoed by Douglas.

“The Vice President. President now, I suppose. He’s calling an emergency meeting,” she said. Her eyes slid across the room to Natasha, who was occupied watching TJ watch his brother.

Mr. Hammond followed Mrs. Barrish’s look with his eyes. His frown deepened. Natasha, as if sensing the scrutiny, looked up and held his gaze with unwavering focus.

“Normally I’d tell you to send those vultures packing, but these are kind of extraordinary circumstances,” Ellen said. She settled herself on the bed beside TJ. He shifted over and endeavored to make himself small. Not that he was a particularly broad man to begin with. It seemed more like he was afraid to touch her. Steve would bet money he was concerned about hurting her the way he’d hurt his mother and brother. Ellen seemed to sense this as well and very pointedly threw her arm around his shoulders to pull TJ closer to her side.

“Bud, Elaine, Douglas, you go and put out the fires. Anne and I can keep TJ company while you’re gone,” she said.

“Steve’s staying too, right?” TJ asked. Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth a blush spread across his cheeks. He and his brother shared a look that Steve could not decipher, but it had Douglas standing up and putting his hands on his hips to frown at Steve in much the same way his father had been from the moment he walked in the door.  
What was it about this family that found TJ wanting him around such a cause for concern? It seemed only natural that he’d want the guy who took out the people who hurt him to stick around. Hell, if Steve was in TJ’s place he wouldn’t have wanted to be left alone either. Three weeks HYDRA had him. That was a long time to be afraid.

“No. We’ll leave Philip and Stanley here with you,” Mr. Hammond said. He tried to smile, but the transition from glaring at Steve was awkward and unconvincing.

Ellen snorted again. Steve was getting the impression that she did that a lot. “Yeah, because the Secret Service did such a good job keeping an eye on him the last time. I think we’ll keep Captain America for the time being, if he’s still interested in staying,” she added.

“Of course. If you want me to stay, I’ll stay,” he said at once.

Maybe he should have taken the opportunity to talk about this with Sam when he had the chance. He knew TJ wasn’t Bucky, had no illusions about that fact anymore, couldn’t even if he wanted to with TJ’s whole family clustered around him. He didn’t think staying was going to make what happened with Bucky square. It wasn’t going to—going to make it alright, or less terrible, or feel any less like an open wound he was going to spend the rest of his life walking around with. Nothing short of traveling back in time and grabbing that outstretched hand was going to do that, but it still felt important that he stay. It made a little bit of the dull ache in his chest ease to look at TJ, to have TJ want him to here. It was selfish and not fair, but it made Steve fell more at home than he had since he woke up seventy years too late.

“Are we planning on making this indefinite now?” Mr. Hammond asked, voice sharp and cold. “Are you planning on staying with him forever? Because if not, better to rip off the band-aid now.”

“Bud,” Elaine hissed. She moved away from the door, where she’d been standing since she introduced Sam and Steve, to clamp her hand down hard on Mr. Hammond’s elbow. He lifted his arm as if to shrug her off, aborted the gesture, and instead stood there stiffly under her touch.

“We’re working on disabling and incarcerating the remnants of HYDRA. It’s a good idea to have Steve near at the very least, until we’ve finished clearing any bases in the DC area,” Natasha said. She slipped silently around the bed to stand beside Steve and Sam.

“Isn’t he the one HYDRA is after in the first place?” Bud asked mulishly, pointing at Steve. “Wouldn’t having both of them in the same place just be asking for trouble?”

Natasha smiled. It showed teeth. “No.”

Mr. Hammond looked down, took a step back.

“Let’s let these good people say their goodbyes.” Sam set a hand on Steve’s left shoulder, Natasha’s right and guided them backward to the door. “Steve will be right back,” he added to TJ, still leaning up against his grandmother.

They slipped out the door. Natasha closed it softly behind them. She looked deep in thought, lips pursed and eyes moving back and forth as if she was reading something only she could see. For all Steve knew she could be, scowling back through the list of information she had in her head.

“Stark called four times. He said he had something out of the HYRDA files for me to translate.” She pulled her phone out of her back pocket. Steve couldn’t remember her picking it back up after he dropped it in the car. Maybe she’d gone back down and grabbed it while he was in the room with Mrs. Barrish?

“He sent the file already, I can start translating it while we head over there if you’re willing to drive,” she added, looking up through her lashes at Sam.

He didn’t blush under the look, but he did swell the smallest bit, a smile tugging at his lips. Steve could understand the attraction. Natasha was a beautiful, intelligent woman that Sam now knew had the skills to take down a small army with only the two of them for backup. It was hard not to feel a little giddy when Natasha relied on you for something, when she showed she trusted you enough to delegate.

“I can drive. Where we heading?”

“Manhattan.”

Sam blanched. “We’re going all the way to New York? That’s about a five-hour drive from here. Do we really want to leave Steve alone, without backup? What if more HYDRA guys show up?”

“Forty-eight hours,” she said, turning back to Steve. “After that, if I don’t tell you otherwise, you should take TJ and bring him to New York.”

That was crazy. It didn’t matter what kind of an argument he tried to make, there was no way Mrs. Barrish or Mr. Hammond was going to let him take their son and run off to another state after he’d been kidnapped for weeks. TJ probably wouldn’t want to go. There was no reason for it. Taking a traumatized man away from his support system was a terrible idea.

His reluctance must have shown because Natasha gave a low sound of agitation. Without looking at the door, she pulled him further down the hallway, trusting Sam to follow. Her gaze was intense, serious in a way she only displayed for the most important missions.

“The president’s plane crashed three weeks ago off the coast of China. It’s being reported as a malfunction in the engine. It wasn’t a malfunction.”

For a moment Steve didn’t understand what she meant. If it wasn’t a malfunction, someone had intentionally killed the leader of the free world. Who would do something like that? Who would stand to gain if the man was dead? Would HYDRA have even bothered? It was before the Insight ships were supposed to launch, the president shouldn’t have been a casualty, not yet. The connection to TJ was unclear as well.

Sam lifted both hands to his head and pushed back on hair too short to shift. It was a nervous gesture, one he’d made more than once since two SHIELD Agents showed up at his door looking for a safe haven. He stepped away from Natasha and Steve and began walking in a tight circle.

“HYDRA did it?” he asked. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he flinched. Steve watched him look at the door, then up and down the hallway, eyes catching on the little glass domes concealing security cameras.

He ducked his head and moved in close to Steve and Natasha. “Why would they do that? Why bother when they had the algorithm and the giant planes of death?”

Natasha shook her head. “The nearest we can determine is that the President learned something dangerous, and they took him out before he could tell anyone else about it. Which implies someone in his administration is HYDRA.”

Anger churned in Steve’s gut. HYDRA. Always HYDRA, hurting people again and again. One life would never be enough for them, one horror would never satisfy their appetite for power. And now Mrs. Barrish—Elaine—was going back to Capitol Hill unaware that someone around her, someone around her family, could be working for the people that kidnapped TJ.

“We have to tell—“ Steve began, already moving toward the door, now half a foot further up the hallway.

Natasha pressed the tips of her fingers against his sternum and spoke quickly, quietly. “She knows, I told her. That’s why you’re going to take TJ out of the area as soon as he’s fit to travel. Someone close to them is HYDRA. Until we know who that person is, and why they pumped TJ full of whatever is making him so strong, we need to make sure HYDRA can’t get their hands on him again.”

Someone close to them. What if it was a friend, the way Steve had sometimes grudgingly thought of Rumlow? What if it was Elaine Barrish’s secretary, Secret Service guard, any of the undoubtedly hundreds of staffers that milled in and out of the White House day in and day out? There was no way to keep her safe. No way to keep any of her family members safe.

“We can’t send any of them back to the Hill if we don’t know who the traitor is,” Steve insisted.

“Barrish flat out told me she was going back. She wants to find the person that took her son and I’m not going to turn down a perfectly situated plant. We need someone on the inside keeping track of things while we try and work out more of the files. It’s got the names and placements of enough HYDRA agents that if we dig deep enough we should be able to put together a pretty clear picture of who to investigate.”

“Are we taking the whole family out of town?” Sam asked.

Natasha shook her head. “Just TJ. I know Elaine is clean, and can assume with relative certainty that the grandmother is as well, but not the others.”

“How do you know Elaine is on our side? What if she’s HYDRA?”

Hearing Sam voice such a possibility actually hurt. It would devastate TJ if his mother had been the one to put him in that little cell.

“Elaine was my first assignment after joining with SHIELD. Clint tailed her for a week, there was some hit out on her that was above the CIA’s pay grade, so they called in SHIELD. Clint shadowed her and I shadowed Clint. Trust me, Elaine Barrish is not HYDRA. Bud? Douglas? Anne? I don’t have the background information to make that call and we can’t risk it.”

The door opened behind them and the small crowd from the room filed out. Elaine’s eyes were suspiciously bright and she sniffed a number of times in the short walk from the door to their side. She looked first at Sam, then Natasha, and finally to Steve. He could see the resolve steadying her.

“Thank you all for saving my son. Thank you,” she said, addressing Steve specifically, “for looking out for him while I’m gone.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

She nodded like she’d expected to hear nothing less. With one final steadying breath she turned and gestured for Douglas and Bud to follow her. Bud marched past without making eye contact with anyone but Douglas stopped beside Steve. He looked torn, debating something in his head, before letting out a tight breath, “Thank you for keeping an eye on TJ. He needs it.”

Natasha waited until they were out of sight before repeating, “Forty-eight hours, then you’re both on your way to New York. In the meantime,” she added, focusing back on Sam, “you’re driving while I start translating this file.”

“Any idea what it’s about? Tony didn’t say.”

Natasha smiled, but it didn’t look happy. “It’s about a ghost. Someone that goes by the code name Winter Soldier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A BIG thank you to Annaparma for editing this chapter. It has been made infinitely better now:) For real, you should have seen it before.
> 
> Also, now that the stage has been set the plot should start picking up. Took way longer to get out of the hospital than I thought it would!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A BIG thank you to Annaparma for editing this chapter. It has been made infinitely better now:) Annaparma also coined the name T-Buck for TJ/Bucky, which is how he's been referred to in my head for a number of chapters now and I think it's my favorite.

“We need to take decisive steps to prevent a catastrophe like this from ever happening again,” former Vice President Fred Collier said. It was President now. His voice was no firmer than it ever managed to be, but his eyes flit to those gathered around his table in the Oval Office with more purpose than was his norm. His gaze lingered on Elaine, who kept her own expression serious and closed off.

It was important that he couldn’t see her slowly simmering anger.

Fred Collier was the worst kind of politician, the sort that kissed babies and shook hands so that he could pick-pocket a person’s wallet as soon as their guard was down. How he managed to weasel his way into the Vice Presidential nomination in the first place eluded Elaine, but she could be honest enough with herself to recognize that most of her hostility towards him was distinctly personal. She disliked his politics, but she despised his morals. Anyone that tried to use her son as a manufactured scandal was going to take up permanent residence on her shit list.

Fred Collier was there on that list, right next to Senator Sean Reeves. Both ranked just below HYDRA.

Elaine was angry. So, so angry. But until she had someone on whom she could let loose that anger there was little she could do but nod to prove she was still listening. Nothing about this meeting had been life-or-death, she could have phoned in for her part of the conversation and stayed with TJ at the hospital until he was feeling more sure of himself. It was all well and good to have Captain Rogers there to look after him, but Elaine was smart enough to know that nothing good was going to come out of that interaction. Whether he realized it yet or not, she’d seen enough men look at her son to know that Steve Rogers was an infatuated man. The only reason she didn’t fear him overstepping boundaries with TJ was because she knew what sort of a time period Steve Rogers came from and was willing to bet someone like him would understand manners better than the men that followed her son around from this era.

Plus, her mother was there and she would have no qualms tossing an American icon and hero out on his backside if she thought he was going to do anything to TJ.

So, instead of being with her son, Elaine was here, listening to Fred toss his weight around. He was all talk, judging by the fear and paranoia Fred seemed to be operating under now that President Paul Garcetti was dead. Fred went so far as to have Paul’s grieving wife and young son escorted out of the White House the other day under the guise of “moving them somewhere safe and private to grieve.” Anyone who knew Fred knew that was a lie. He had the former First Family moved out of the White House because he did not feel comfortable having them in the same building where he slept. What if the people who killed the president decided to come back and finish off his family? Elaine quietly had Phillip make a few calls. A young woman who had recently joined the CIA would be sent to keep an eye on the former first family, or what was left of it. Phillip trusted her and Elaine trusted Phillip.

Beside her, the Secretary of Defense shifted in his seat, the wood creaking beneath him. “Now that SHIELD and HYDRA have been disbanded, the problem seems moot,” he said. He sat back and waved his hand as if to address an invisible body in the space between his chair and Elaine’s. “No one is going to be able to pull off the sort of funding that HYDRA had access to. Without the financial backing another project like the ships in the Potomac isn’t possible. The only person who could come close on their own is Tony Stark and he’s not likely to support some Nazi terrorist group.”

The Secretary of Defense worked with Lt. Col. James Rhodes on a semi-regular basis. He’d partnered on assignments in the past with SHIELD agents back before he was promoted. Of all the people in this room, the Secretary of Defense was perhaps the most qualified to speak on the probable courses of action a group like SHIELD or even HYDRA would take in reaction to half of their members having either drowning in the Potomac or getting arrested, and the other half of their members looking over their shoulders in fear now that their names and faces were on the internet for anyone to see.

Fred narrowed his eyes. The motion made his face contract so that the puffy bags under his eyes stood out prominently.

“It’s not enough to assume that they aren’t going to use the power that they have against us. For God’s sake, we’ve had aliens from outer space invade, terrorists bomb Malibu and robots blow up a town in New Mexico in the last year and a half alone. Now half of DC is covered in rubble.” Fred slapped his hand down onto the table.

Elaine told herself not to roll her eyes at the poor display of showmanship. No one in this room was going to be impressed just because Fred acted strong, not when they knew how cowardly he really was. What sort of a man tossed a grieving widow and child out of the safest place in the country when they could be in danger?

Maybe she should call Natasha Romanoff about it…she’d certainly seemed willing to trade information with Elaine back in the hospital. Information in exchange for an extra eye kept on her son and Paul’s family. After all, if anyone was going to go after them it would be the same people who killed Paul and Romanoff seemed convinced HYDRA was to blame for that. If HYDRA came after the former first lady and her child and one of Romanoff’s associates happened to catch the culprit before anyone was hurt…well, Elaine might get the chance to help a friend and take down a threat all at once.

“These people are dangerous,” Fred continued. “Hell, I’m not even sure we can call all of them people, certainly not the green one. What we need is a way to protect ourselves, a way to know about the danger and stop it before it even comes our way.”

“With all due respect, Mr. President, but that sounds an awful lot like what those ships out in the Potomac were supposed to do, and that plan didn’t work out so well,” the Secretary of Defense said, leaning forward in his chair once more. His eye caught Elaine’s and they shared a silent understanding.

She was glad he’d been the one to say something. Fred had a nasty tendency to ignore sound advice he didn’t want to hear anytime it came from a woman’s voice. And this was a terrible, terrible idea.

Red patches of anger bloomed on the puffy portions of Fred’s face. “What I’m proposing in nothing like what those monsters tried to do. They targeted everyone, whether they were a threat to the general public or not.”

“And what, exactly, are you proposing?” Elaine asked. It came out harder than it should have. Fred was—technically—her superior now, she couldn’t be blatantly rude to him and still hope to keep her job. And she needed her job right now. It was the best shot she had of figuring out who in this administration was HYDRA and why they went after TJ.

She would burn the White House to the ground and throw salt on the ashes if that’s what it took to protect her son. Douglas was strong, Douglas could handle whatever the world had to throw at him and anything he needed help shouldering, Anne was there to share the burden. There was never a time when Douglas needed her the way TJ always had and possibly always would. There was something inherently fragile about her oldest son, something deep inside that was broken, and nothing Elaine did or said helped. It was like he was born world-weary and beaten down, spending year after year having to teach himself that catastrophe didn’t wait around every corner. It was hard to insist people weren’t out to get him when TJ interacted with everyone as if they were; it created a self-fulfilling prophecy that he just couldn’t break out of.

She’d suggested therapy to Bud back when TJ was seven and waking from night terrors about doctors cutting his arms off each night, but Bud refused. She shouldn’t have let him convince her it was a phase TJ would grow out of the same way Douglas grew out of his fear of the dark.

“I’m not proposing anything. I’ve drummed up enough support on the hill to get a bill fast-tracked through Congress this week. We’re going to make those people step out of the shadows and register themselves,” Fred said. There was a note of challenge to his tone, hostile and sharp, but his eyes never strayed from Elaine’s. “No more fearing these freaks.”  
Silence greeted this declaration. The whole of the presidential cabinet sat clustered around Fred’s desk, and no one said a word.

Elaine, unable to help herself, scoffed. “Register? Really? Like the Nazis did with the Jewish citizens back in WWII? Or, maybe you’re thinking of something closer to what we did to Japanese-Americans? Forgive my candor, but that is a terrible, reactionary idea that’s going to alienate and actively antagonize the very people you’re trying to control.”

Rather than take offense to her words, Fred smiled. He laced his fingers together and set them on his desk with calm, controlled motions. The Secretary of Defense shifted in his seat beside Elaine, but she didn’t bother checking to see why. If Fred wanted to have a staring contest over this she was fine with that. He wouldn’t be the first man to challenge her this way and he wouldn’t be the last to back down afterwards.

“This is for the people’s protection. As long as it’s presented to them in a positive light, the ones who should be signing up will jump at the chance to fight back against the terrorists. Because that’s where we’re at now,” Fred said, still smiling. “You’re either with us or you’re with HYDRA.”

“I have to agree with the Secretary of State,” the Secretary of Defense insisted. He frowned, trying to catch Elaine’s eye again, but she would not be the one to look away first. She would not be the one to admit defeat on this point.

Trying to make people who were already terrified of the things that they could do and the sort of reactions they could get from their peers if their abilities were known, to essentially out themselves, was a terrible plan. Maybe she would have considered the idea—still would have shot it down, but not with the same amount of vehemence—had she not had such vivid images in her head of TJ panicking in a hospital bed because he thought he’d hugged her too hard. People with abilities like Captain Rogers and now, her son, did not need to have their private struggles forced out into the open. They needed time and acceptance, not the public hostility and fear they would face if such a law actually passed.

“It’ll be plenty popular so long as the right face presents it,” Fred said, and now his smile was so smug it bordered on obscene. He looked like he wanted to laugh, like he’d beaten Elaine at a record length game of chess she hadn’t been aware she was playing until she’d already lost.

“No one is going to willingly put their name down on a list to single themselves out as different,” she said.

The corners of Fred’s lips curled up. “You’re son will.”

Douglas? Why would he—

No.

NO.

“I don’t know what you think you mean by that—" Elaine began, but Fred cut her off.

“You know exactly what I mean by that,” he said. The table spanned like a battlefield between then—the table that had been set up for this meeting in the center of the room—the table Fred refused to sit at, opting instead to dictate from behind the safety of his desk. “I have it on good authority that your son has been exhibiting strength that’s, dare I say, superhuman. Just like those people from the Battle of New York. He’s one of them and he’s going to be the poster boy for our new bill.”

Elaine was not aware of pushing her seat back. She was only vaguely aware of the fact that she’d moved around the table and stalked her way to Fred. She only really returned to the moment when the firm hand of the Secretary of State dropped down onto her shoulder. She shrugged it off and finished her march to Fred’s desk, slamming her hands flat onto its surface. It gratified her to note that several of the senior staff members in the room and Fred himself flinched at the sound her hands made.

“My son is not and never will be available for you to use as a puppet for your own agenda,” she hissed. And it was a hiss, the words scraping themselves against her teeth on the way out. Bud had punched this man less than a month ago for the stunt he tried to pull with TJ and Senator Reeve. If not for the two Service agents standing behind his desk Elaine, too, might have tried her hand at punching the President of the United States in his own office.

“TJ had no trouble outing himself to the country while your husband was in office—and look how much good that did for Gay Rights. How many states allow for same-sex marriage now?” Fred said. It wasn’t backpedaling, because there was no apology in his voice, but it was an attempt to play to Elaine’s weakness. He knew how hard she campaigned during Bud’s time in office for better legal and social rights for the LGBTQ community. Trying to claim that TJ’s decision to talk about his sexuality while he was a teenager in the White House, like it had somehow directly caused what few strides forward the community had gained, was manipulative at best. TJ wasn’t a politician; he’d actively tried not to be part of that national conversation.

“Stay away from my children.”

The Secretary of Defense’s hands were back, gently guiding her away from Fred and the promise of danger Elaine displayed. Neither Service agent behind the desk had moved to defend Fred. They used to be assigned to Paul Garcetti’s wife and son—both were denied their request to continue serving the former First Lady. Fred wanted competent people watching his back. They hadn’t done him much good in the face of her rage.

“You’re son’s going to be the first one to sign up for the Registration Act. He can get his new friends to sign up too. You know, the ones who broke into a government building to steal classified technology?” Fred continued as if he had not heard her threat, but the red bursts of color on his face were darker now.

Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and Sam Wilson. That was who Fred meant. If TJ didn’t agree to be the poster boy for this terrible project, Fred was going to arrest the very people who gave her son back his freedom. TJ was a lot of things—careless with his own happiness and deeply self-destructive—but he was not selfish. He would not let the people who rescued him suffer if there was anything he could do to stop it. He might even be happy to do it, if he thought the sacrifice would make Steve Rogers like him more.

How did Fred Collier even know about TJ’s strength? He’d reacted with just as much surprise and just as many well wishes when Elaine told the room her son was alive and safe. Someone would have needed to tell Fred about TJ’s strength…the only people who could have known were family and the doctors at the hospital.

The hospital where she’d left him alone.

And a sudden, dizzying thought struck Elaine as Fred continued to smile at her from behind his desk. What if Fred Collier, the new President of the United States, was HYDRA?

She stepped away from the desk and back to her spot at the table. Without looking back, Elaine gathered her things, shoved the papers and notes she’d taken during the meeting into her bag and walked to the door. Walk, not run. If she was right she couldn’t tip her hand any further, couldn’t let Fred know she suspected anything.

Behind her, Elaine heard the Secretary of Defense say, “I want it on record that I think this bill is a bad idea.” Several voices murmured in agreement.

Elaine waited until she was out of the Oval Office and in a relatively deserted hallway before pulling out her cell phone and punching in the number she’d memorized on the ride over from the hospital. It had been written on a little white slip of paper she’d been instructed to flush down the toilet once she’d arrived at her destination.

It rang twice. On the second ring a calm, crisp voice said, “Madam Secretary.”

Elaine wasted no time on pleasantries, “Someone in the hospital told Fred Collier about the effects of TJ’s kidnapping.”

There followed a beat of stillness and then an equally crisp, calm, “I’ll call Steve. We’ll have him out of the building and somewhere safe in under an hour.”

“Somewhere safe?” Elaine echoed, even as the tension coiled under her ribs began to ease. “Where is ‘somewhere safe’?”

“It’s better if you don’t know. I’ll make sure TJ calls as soon as he gets in.”

“Can I trust you to look after my son?”

The answer did not come immediately. That was how Elaine knew she could trust its honesty.

“No,” Natasha Romanoff said on the other end of the line. “But I’m not the one you’re trusting his safety to. Steve is, and Steve would die for him.”

Somehow, that did not make Elaine feel any better. “Have him call me as soon as you can.”

“I will,” Romanoff said, with maybe a touch of something other than cool calm in her tone. And then the line went dead.

On the other side of Washington DC a cell phone rang. TJ watched as Steve jumped. He’d been standing against the wall near the window, alternately watching the door and TJ himself. He floundered for a moment, clearly unsure whether or not to answer the ring in his back pocket. Finally he reached into his pocket, pulled out the cell and winced in apology.

“Sorry, I’ll take it outside,” he said and ducked out of the room.

Grandma watched him go with a raised eyebrow. “Hate to see him leave, love to watch him go.”

The words didn’t register at first but once they did TJ felt his face heat with second-hand embarrassment. Steve was already out the door, so it wasn’t like he’d heard, but it was still a bold thing for his grandmother to say. Part of him was shocked and another part of him felt like he’d been expecting the comment but neither of these reactions made sense. Grandma said things like that all the time, he should not be shocked; a woman wouldn’t say something so crass, he had every right to be shocked. There was no way to feel both of these impulses at once, but TJ did.

The memories in his head were still fuzzy, jumbled, and confusing. He remembered the feel of a hardwood floor pressed against his cheek in the heat of a summer with no air-conditioning, but he’d never lived in a house without central air. He remembered the feel of breaking his arm after falling out of the hay loft at his uncle’s ranch, but the memory was followed by confusing images of Dr. Anderson re-breaking his bones because they healed crookedly in the drive from the ranch to the doctor’s office. But that wasn’t possible because bones didn’t heal that fast. There were images of cold metal in his hand and the kick back of a bullet leaving his gun to enter the bowed body in front of it, but TJ had never held a gun before. Even when Dad and Douglas went hunting or to the shooting range, TJ would opt to stay home with Grandma or Mom. He hated guns.

The mere appearance of Dr. Anderson in his memories made TJ’s skin crawl. He knew Anderson was there, knew he was with the kidnappers, but at the same time he couldn’t be sure how accurate those memories were. What if they were fake? What if HYDRA gave him all new ones and the reason things were so mixed up and nauseous in his head was because they fucked up somehow and didn’t put the fake memories in right?

Anne gave an approving hum and turned away from the door. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man with such an amazing butt,” she said in a stage whisper. 

TJ laughed. He couldn’t help it. Whatever memories he had of Anne, real or otherwise (he hoped they were real, they had to be real, what if they weren’t real), painted her as almost as uptight as Douglas. To hear her comment on shapeliness and appeal of anyone’s butt was a thing of beauty.

Steve was a thing of beauty too. All the jumbled sets of memories in his head agreed on that fact. What would it take to convince Steve a thorough round of kissing would help make everything all better? Plenty of people used that line on TJ and it tended to work more often than not—he didn’t like it when people cried. They could beg and plead and push and bully, all of which he remembered a parade of closeted congressmen and their upstanding sons doing in his lifetime (that was real, those memories were real, he could still taste some of them, they had to be real what if they weren’t) but it was the crying that got him into trouble. Didn’t matter what they wanted from him most of the time, if they cried they got it.

Douglas said he must have been an asshole in another life and was making up for it now with all the guilt trips.

Maybe he would think differently if he knew tears were what got TJ to try cocaine the first time. At least, he thought that was how it started. There was another, blurry impression of a small man with glasses pressing a needle into TJ’s arm as he asked, “What is your name?” that got mixed in when TJ thought about it too much. 

Grandma gave a small jump and reached into her purse resting on the bedside table. She glanced at it and arched a perfectly sculpted brow. She might not be a showgirl anymore, but her makeup was always flawless.

“You’re mother,” she said, tipping her head in TJ’s direction.

He kind of wished Mom was here. It made him feel immature and clingy.

“Yes? Yes, we’re—“Grandma began. She stopped, frowning harder and giving soft “hums” to show she was listening. Suddenly her eyes shot to TJ—he flinched back and hated himself for it but what if she was mad, what if he hurt her somehow what if this was all a dream and he was still there in that cell what if what if what if.

“Are you sure?” Grandma asked. All the levity was gone from her voice. She frowned at the door as it opened and Steve slunk back in.

His shoulders were drooped and his hands twisted back and forth around his phone. He wasn’t making eye contact with anyone, which was odd. He’d been doing a surprisingly good job of watching TJ and maintaining eye contact without being creepy about it (there was some other guy, a small guy, liked to pick back alley fights he couldn’t hope to win, who used to look at him a lot too and that hadn’t been creepy but that didn’t fit, the timelines didn’t match up) so the fact that he wasn’t stood out now.

Grandma made a hard sound deep in her throat and continued, “I understand, honey. It’ll be taken care of.”

She disconnected the call, slipped her phone back into her bag and slid off the edge of TJ’s mattress to smooth down her silk dress pants. Anne stood as well. She glanced back and forth between Grandma and Steve eyes wide and confused. TJ could understand the feeling. He liked Anne. She was good for Douglas. Way better than the girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day at the Stark Expo, he’d tried to give her popcorn and she’d been so rude about not wanting any and—

But TJ’d never been to a Stark Expo and neither had Douglas.

His head hurt. He maybe was going to throw up. The joint of his left arm throbbed.

“Is everything alright?” Anne asked. She moved closer to the bed and rested a hand on TJ’s knee. She wasn’t normally a tactical person, at least not towards him.

Had anyone told him what happened to Dr. Anderson or Pierce or the people with guns? It was very important that someone tell him what happened to them, they might be out there still, he should have given a report, explained the situation so that someone could send a cleanup crew, one of the handlers—

“I think I’m going to throw up,” he managed before his stomach rebelled.

Anne snatched up the plastic trash can beside his bed and shoved it under TJ’s nose. He did not emerge for several long minutes.

“TJ’s going to go with Captain Rogers here to see one of his friends. They’re going to help with the strength—they helped you when you woke up from the ice, right Captain?” Grandma asked.

TJ peered up over the rim of the trash can to watch Steve blink down at his grandmother, who returned the look with an impatient one of her own until he nodded and said hurriedly, “Oh! Yeah, they definitely helped.”

It was a lie. A terrible lie at that. Why would Grandma lie to him? Why would Steve lie to him? Steve never lies except to the military and that hardly counted. He would never lie to TJ, they were friends, together until the end of the—

TJ gagged again, stomach contracting painfully against itself because there was nothing left to expel.

“Can they help with the nausea?” Anne asked. “Is that from the strength?”

“It might be.” Steve’s voice was suddenly very close. A cool hand settled on the back of TJ’s neck and he flinched again. He hated this. He never used to flinch. The last time touch made him this jumpy was after Sean, and that wasn’t something he wanted to think about right now.

“We’re going to leave now. Is that alright? Do you think you can stand up?”

Of course he could stand up. He wasn’t Douglas, he didn’t get short of breath every time he did anything strenuous, only that didn’t make any sense either because Douglas was in perfect shape and didn’t have asthma.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” he muttered as he pushed off the bed. His mouth tasted terrible now. Grandma pressed a plastic cup of water into his hands and TJ gulped it down gratefully. Everything felt fragile right now, like if he breathed too deeply his insides would split in two and he’d die which he’d kinda wanted not too long ago but being in that cell and having them pick at his brain had been too close to being dead for TJ to find any relief in the thought now.

“I can grab your discharge papers,” Anne said. She liked to be helpful. It was part of what Mom liked about her, that helpfulness. Someday Douglas was going to run for president—he didn’t know it yet but it was definitely going to happen—and Anne being helpful would be important.

Grandma smiled her brightly painted smile and cooed, “Thank you, darling. I’ll be right there to help sign him out.” She waited until Anne was out of the room to march over to the little attached bathroom and pull out a canvas backpack. She tossed it on the bed (don’t flinch, she’d not trying to hit you with it) and threw up her hands.

“Well? You want me to walk you through it, honey? Get your clothes on, you can’t take part in a daring rescue in a backless hospital gown.”

TJ moved on automatic to the bag. Inside was his favorite pair of faded jeans and a dark blue t-shirt. He slipped the pants on under the hospital gown but deliberately let the gown fall to the floor before pulling on the shirt. He arched his back just a bit more than was necessary, catching Steve’s eyes sliding down the smooth expanse of his abs before pulling the shirt on properly.

“There will be none of that right now, do you hear me, young man?” Grandma said, and it was sharp, commanding, orders that he hadn’t listened to, Mom was going to be mad, they were going to put him in the cold again—

“Wow, wow, it’s alright. Deep breaths,” Steve instructed. At some point he’d slipped his hands under TJ’s elbows to support him because TJ’s knees had turned to jelly.

“Sorry. My head…it’s doing weird things,” he muttered. He could smell Steve now that they were this close and it was a familiar scent that he knew he’d never come across before this very moment.

Nothing made any sense.

Grandma marched across the room. She reached up and cupped her hands on either side of TJ’s face, drawing his forehead close to her own. He had to look slightly cross eyes to focus on her face. “Captain Rogers is taking you somewhere safe. This hospital isn’t safe for you,” she said.

Her lips trembled for the briefest moment before she pressed them together, steadied her resolve and plowed forward. She and Mom were so much alike it was frightening sometimes. “Those HYDRA people hurt you, and we aren’t going to let them do it again. Steve Rogers is a good man, but you need to know your limits, TJ. Don’t go breaking yourself again, a heart can only take so much.”

And he knew what she meant. She knew what he’d been doing with the shirt stunt, probably knew what he’s been wanting Steve to do for the last few hours, but she wasn’t thinking of Steve. She was thinking of Sean—they looked so much alike, Steve and Sean, that maybe TJ was only interested because he could pretend Steve was someone else if they kissed but that was wrong too because Steve was there first, he remembered little boy limbs and gap-toothed grins that grew into charcoal covered fingers and a fond voice telling him, “you took all the stupid with you.”

TJ was going insane. That was all there was to it. He was going insane because his pediatrician was actually HYDRA and HYDRA were actually Nazis and he’d been Dr. Mengele-ed without the death part, that was still coming, it got lost in the mail…

“You still with us?” Steve asked. His breath disturbed the small hairs curling around TJ’s ears.

TJ nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Grandma patted his cheek and gave a wet smile. “Call me and call your mother as soon as you get to where you’re going.”

“You don’t know where I’m going?” He trusted Steve (why why why why?) but not knowing where he was going and knowing that Grandma didn’t know where he was going made it hard to breath.

Grandma shrugged. “You’re going to be fine. It’s safer if I don’t know. Now,” she said, forcing a note of chipper brightness into her tone, “Get out of here before Anne comes back. It’s supposed to be a secret, after all.”

So TJ allowed himself to be led away, past nurses and doctors who didn’t look twice at him. Steve walked him out a side door and to a waiting four-door sedan. He didn’t think it was the same car they had come to the hospital in, but he’d passed out half way here and couldn’t be sure. His memories might be wrong, after all.

“We’re going to Stark Tower in New York,” Steve said once they were both in the car and the doors were closed and locked. “Tony knows some people that can help with the strength thing, maybe even reverse it if you want.”

“Can he fix my head?” TJ asked. He let his whole body sag against the window and watched the scenery as it flashed past the window. He knew that at least was real.

“I-I think so? What’s…If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to but, can I ask what’s wrong with your head?”

Who knew Captain America could sound so hesitant? He never looked hesitant in the old news clips they showed in history class, but he was always shy around Peggy because she was so smart and looked at him like he hung the moon and TJ had to have read that or seen that somewhere before but the thought seemed too old and too new at the same time.

“I think HYDRA did something to my memories. They aren’t working,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “I keep remembering things that aren’t real. Was Dr. Anderson there when you got me out of the cell?”

“I’m not sure who that is,” Steve admitted and it sounded like having to say the words hurt.

TJ shrugged, still not opening his eyes. It didn’t matter. Tony Stark could fix him. Tony Stark was Iron Man and a billionaire genius, even TJ new that. Between Tony and Steve, someone would be able to figure out where the phantom pains in his arm were coming from and why it felt like there was ice inside his skin.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A BIG thank you to Annaparma for editing this chapter. It has been made infinitely better now:)

Stark Tower was large, ostentatious and flashy. It was everything about the future that grated under Steve’s skin. It wasn’t as if there were no outlandish buildings or awe-inspiring wealth in his time, but the comparison was almost too distant to stick. Wealth in the 1940’s was nothing at all like wealth in 2014. Even the car Tony had dropped off at the hospital for Steve to drive was the most extravagant thing he’d yet experienced. It spoke in a calm, British voice to instruct Steve where to turn and, once, to suggest he raise the temperature in the car because TJ was shivering in the passenger seat next to him.

It was August and the sun outside the car was hot, but Steve turned the air conditioning low and tried not to worry. TJ fell asleep almost as soon as they reached the highway, which was fine by Steve. After everything that had happened to him in the last few weeks, TJ deserved some unguarded rest. If he felt comfortable sleeping in Steve’s presence, Steve was willing to sit there silently and let him be.

They pulled into the underground parking garage of Stark Tower a little after midnight. TJ was awake for the last hour of the trip, but not very talkative. He spent most of his time looking out the window and frowning. Every so often he lifted a hand to press against his head, but that was it. Steve had hoped they could talk on the long drive, but he wasn’t going to push conversation if TJ wanted silence.

TJ lifted one hand again to press against his head as they exited the car and moved to the elevator at the far end of the garage. Tony said someone named Jarvis was going to direct them to the proper room once they arrived but no one was waiting for them. It was perhaps the last private moment they would get before Tony found out they had arrived, so it might also be the last time Steve got the chance to ask TJ a question without someone else there to hear it. He wasn’t sure how tight-lipped TJ wanted to be about what happened to him.

“We can get you some aspirin when we get up to Tony’s house,” Steve said as they stepped into the elevator.

TJ’s eyes flicked up to Steve’ and then flicked down again. “I’m not sure aspirin is going to help. I think—“ TJ hesitated. He licked his lips and rubbed at his right arm absently, like it hurt too. “I think they did something to my head. It’s not right.”

A flash of panic slipped through Steve’s gut. What would HYDRA gain by tampering with TJ’s head? What did they want with him to begin with? Bucky was so mixed up inside after he was taken and experimented on by Zola. He never spoke about it, always insisted he was fine, but he woke up from nightmares more nights than not and was jumpy whenever anyone’s hands got too close to his eyes. But TJ wasn’t Bucky and Steve knew enough now to realize that his own baggage couldn’t enter into this. It made no difference to TJ that Steve had failed a friend long gone; all that mattered was making sure he didn’t let TJ down in the here and now.

“We’ll figure it out, I promise,” Steve said. He wanted to reach out and touch TJ. He looked so small standing in the corner of the elevator, shoulders hunched as he rubbed his arms, that not offering what meager comfort he had to give physically hurt Steve. But it wasn’t about Steve’s hurts, it was about TJ’s.

TJ smiled. It didn’t look happy. “You really shouldn’t make promises you’re not sure you can keep.”

And that was the last straw, he couldn’t hold back anymore. Steve set his hand onto TJ’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. He expected a smile maybe, a nod of acknowledgment, something small. He didn’t expect TJ to step backward to press into Steve’s chest. He didn’t expect TJ to tip his head sideways to rest on Steve’s collarbone. It left Steve floundering. If this were Bucky leaning into him like this, sinking into his personal space, that would be understandable. He and Bucky leaned on each other physically and emotionally all the time, not touching one another in a time of stress would have odd. But again, this wasn’t Bucky. This was TJ, who had only known him for two days, who kept clinging to Steve in ways that were not unpleasant, but were certainly confusing.

The modern world itself was confusing. TJ’s whole family seemed ready to jump down Steve’s throat for initiating or allowing any physical contact, but physical contact seemed to be the one thing that helped calm TJ.

“Captain Rogers, Mr. Hammond, Mr. Stark has been informed of your arrival,” said the same calm British voice from the car.

TJ lifted his head to glance left and right but made no move to put more space between them. Steve moved the hand from his shoulder to his elbow instead. It seemed like the better place for his hand to go, with the way TJ swayed slightly in tandem with the movement of his head.

“Was that a disembodied voice, or am I hearing things now?”

“I think that’s Jarvis. Tony said he’d meet us when we got here,” Steve said.

Before they could continue on the subject, a soft ping filled the elevator and the doors slid smoothly open. Steve hadn’t been to the tower since the fight against Loki. The residential floor was mostly rubble at that time. Now it was as pristine and sparkling as the outside of the building. Everything was white or chrome, the furniture cut into smooth, sloping shapes that spoke more of style than functionality. The floors were soft, blond wood, and served as the main pop of color aside from the framed pictures on the walls that consisted of splashes of paint against canvases. It felt sterile.

Standing with his arms spread wide just outside the doors of the elevator was Tony Stark. He wasn’t dressed casually for Tony—which normal consisted of old ACDC shirt and worn-in jeans. Today his pants had the strange wrinkle resistant sheen to them that meant they probably cost more than Steve’s rent and the button down shirt he had rolled up to the elbow was most likely made of a material that hadn’t existed before Steve thawed out. If Steve didn’t know any better he would assume Tony had dressed up to meet TJ, but that would imply he was trying to make a good impression and Tony didn’t normally care about impressing people. The smile on his face shifted from bright and vaguely roguish to something smaller, accompanied by a perfectly arched eyebrow. His gaze swept over Steve and TJ, and it was only now, under Tony’s scrutiny, that Steve realized what they might look like to an outsider. He didn’t care what anyone thought of him or what Tony might tease him about, but TJ didn’t deserve the assumptions that might be made.

He strove to make the hand still on TJ’s elbow appear more clinical as he led them both out of the elevator and into the room. Tony watched, eyes narrowed. He cast Steve a suspicious glance that TJ seemed not to notice as he looked all around the room, still pressing his back into Steve’s chest. For support, obviously, because he’d had a hard time walking to the car when they left the hospital and there was no reason to think sitting for five hours in a cramped space was going to improve his strength.

“Capsicle, made good time on the road I see,” Tony said. “Thomas. TJ, can I call you TJ? How you doing there? Want some water? Some milk? I’d offer you something stronger but you don’t look old enough to drink anything but milk.”

TJ stiffened. Steve felt his whole body go taut and turn into hard angles. Was the comment about his age that offensive? The drive seemed to have calmed him down, steadied him even, but two seconds with Tony was enough to undo what calm he’d found. Steve would be the first one to admit that Tony could be aggravating as a toothache, but this time   
Tony seemed like he was at least trying to be pleasant.

“I’m twenty-seven,” TJ said. It sounded far away, slow, and muddled. “Drinking age is eighteen.”

Steve and Tony exchanged glances. Tony stepped backward. TJ took an equal step forward. The motion brought him away from Steve and whatever support he’d been gaining from the closeness.

“I’m pretty sure you’re thirty, even if you look like you’re maybe twenty-five,” Tony countered. “And the drinking age is twenty-one. So, yes, you can drink. If you want a drink, I can get you a drink. I was mostly joking about not offering you a drink. Cap, can he drink? Should I get him a drink?”

“No,” Steve muttered. He stepped around TJ, bending slightly to look him in the eyes. TJ was looking past him, past Tony, focused on an empty portion of the wall leading to a long hallway. “Are you alright?”

“Howard. Please—“ TJ gasped. Pain flashed across his face as he slapped a hand to his forehead and groaned.

“TJ? Tony,” Steve said urgently, glancing over his shoulder as he reached out to steady a dangerously swaying TJ, “get him some water—“

A hand twisted over and around his own to pull. Steve’s shoulder locked, forcing his back to arch and disrupting his center of gravity. He tipped backward over TJ’s hip and smashed hard into the white wall behind him face first. A picture frame fell and shattered across his back to litter the floor in shards of glass. It all happened so fast that it took Steve a moment to process the fact that TJ actually attacked him.

“Wow, what?” Tony squawked.

TJ lunged for him. He drew his arm back and threw a punch that Tony had to fling himself backward to avoid. TJ used the momentum from his punch to spin, turning the action into a high kick instead. It caught Tony just under the ribs, sending him crashing into the white couch.

“JARVIS,” Tony said, winded and wide-eyed as he pushed himself upright.

“A suit will arrive in t-minus ten seconds,” Jarvis replied calmly.

Steve rolled back to his feet just as TJ threw himself into Tony hard enough to knock the couch over. Tony gave another squawk, cut off by the sound of flesh hitting flesh. Steve ran around the couch in time to see TJ land a hard blow to the side of Tony’s jaw. The pillows behind his head from the tumbled couch helped absorbed some of the impact but not much. Steve wrapped his arms around TJ’s arms. The back of TJ’s head slammed into his face as he pulled TJ and Tony apart.  
Tony scrambled backward just as a streak of red crashed into the room from a wide window. TJ snarled something in what sounded like Russian as the Iron Man suit wrapped itself around Tony’s body.

“TJ? TJ, stop, what are you doing?” What was going on? Where was all of this anger coming from? 

“You’re boyfriend just tried to break my face,” Tony said as he stood. His knees bent slightly like he was bracing for another blow but just as suddenly as the outburst started, it stopped. TJ went slack in Steve’s arms, draped forward as he gasped. At once he began to shudder, tremors racing through him so that his teeth chattered together when he tried and failed to lift his head.

“’M gonna be sick,” he said and immediately proceeded to vomit.

Steve closed his eyes and forced himself not to react to the feel of bile dripping down over his arms or the painful spasming of muscles under his hands. TJ curled his feet up to his chest and rocked, coughing and hiccupping. This was nuts. There was absolutely no provocation for what just happened, no reason at all for TJ to attack Tony. More than that, the move TJ used to throw him into the wall was not an easy one to pull off. It was the sort of weight based style of fighting that Natasha favored, because it did not require strength so much as precision and an understanding of the human body. Nothing about the uncoordinated way TJ moved in the last forty-eight hours indicated he had that sort of awareness of his own limbs.

He and called Tony, Howard. Why?

“You want to explain the property damage?” Tony demanded. He didn’t sound as angry as Steve would have expected him to after someone he invited into his home attacked him.  
A sound like a wounded animal escaped from TJ. Steve felt his chest constrict like it hadn’t since the days he could get an asthma attack, like it hadn’t since he saw TJ in that cell and thought for one wild moment that he was looking at Bucky.

“My head. I’m sorry. I don’t—I’m, I can’t—“ TJ couldn’t get in enough air. The gasps were becoming wheezes and Steve felt useless. There was nothing he could do to help other than release his grip so there was no extra pressure on TJ’s chest, but even then the fear that TJ might attack Tony again and hurt himself trying to hit the Iron Man suit kept him holding on to TJ’s arms. He shifted around, trying and mostly failing not to spread the bile further.

TJ looked up at Steve and there were tears in his eyes. He looked wrecked, battered and small on the floor of Tony Stark’s living room and Steve ached. What had HYDRA done? How were they still hurting TJ even when they weren’t there?

“Anyone want to explain what’s going on here?”

Sometime during the confusion Sam and Natasha found their way into the room. Sam took one look at the smashed up wall with the broken picture frame and Tony in full suit, before shaking his head. Steve could see the exact moment he decided he did not care why it looked like there had been a throw down in the room when he could instead help the man falling to pieces in Steve’s arms. Because Sam was amazing. He slipped around the upended couch to kneel beside Steve. TJ watched his approach with wild eyes.

“Hi, buddy,” Sam said once he too was on his knees and at eye level with TJ. “I’m going to ask you to take deep breaths with me. You think you can do that?” Only once before had Steve witnessed Sam this soft, this soothing, and that was when he led the support group at the VA.

TJ looked between them both, still choking on air he could not get in fast enough. He nodded but the motion came off more as a full body flinch than actual agreement. Sam went with it anyway, smiling an even, calm smile.

“Ok. In and out. Just in and out. Exactly like I’m doing,” he said. With each inhale Sam brought both hands close to his chest, like he was pressing against his lungs, and with each exhale he pulled his arms back. TJ followed the pattern of his arms more than his actual breathing. Even still, it took a long time before TJ’s breath evened out and returned to normal. Once it had he sagged, drawing in on himself and trying to turn small. Steve felt his eyes burn, and forced himself to ignore the sting.

“Good job. That’s perfect,” Sam said once TJ had his breathing under control again. “How about we get you somewhere you can clean up and then we can talk about what just happened. Sound good?”

TJ nodded, but did not make eye contact with anyone. He let Steve help him to his feet and allowed himself to be guided around the couch. Steve intentionally took the route that would put as much distance between them and Tony as possible, just in case.

He needn’t have bothered, however, because Tony marched himself right up to TJ. Steve placed his body between them, and he told himself it was so that TJ would have to go through him before getting to Tony again, not because he was afraid Tony might try to take a cheap shot now that he was in the suit. Tony wouldn’t do something like that, and Steve knew it.

“So, I’m thinking something was triggering just now,” Tony said. He let the face mask of his suit flip up and open, so that was something. It implied he trusted TJ—or possibly Steve—enough not to fear another punch to the jaw.

TJ did not look at Tony. He stared instead at the sick on his shirt sleeves. “I’m going to assume good old HYDRA had something to do with that, but how about we think of a code word from now on, something you can say when you’re feeling even slightly violent. I liked that couch. Pepper will be pissed if I have to get a new one.”

“Can we talk about this in a few minutes?” Steve asked. He glanced from Tony to Sam for support. It couldn’t be a good idea to prod at an outburst like this before giving TJ enough time to sort out his own head. At the very least, they should hold off until he didn’t have vomit on his clothes anymore.

Tony shot him a hard look, but didn’t say anything else.

“Sam, can you go grab them both some new shirts?” Natasha asked from the hallway. It did not sound like a request, even if she’d taken the time to phrase it as such.

“I’m sorry,” TJ muttered, ducking his head even further.

Tony considered the apology for a moment before waving his hand dismissively. “It’s fine. Me casa es su casa. What’s the point of being rich if I can’t break things every once in a while?”

TJ gave no response, which was probably just as well because Tony’s eyes were fixed on Steve the whole time he spoke.

Sam disappeared into a door on their left as Steve and TJ followed Natasha, Tony bringing up the rear in his suit. They stopped before the second door on the right, which opened to reveal a large, blue and white bathroom complete with a clawfoot tub. Natasha made a shooing gesture to herd TJ and Steve into the bathroom and then preceded to lean her hip up against the door jam and stand there expectantly to watch them. TJ didn’t seem to care. He pulled off his soiled shirt and reached for one of the blue hand towels hanging on the wall. Once it was wet, he scrubbed at his arms with single-minded focus. Steve hesitated a moment before following suit and removing his own dirty shirt.

Natasha wasn’t doing anything more than standing there, and it helped having her so close even if the way she watched TJ remove bit of his clothes made Steve uncomfortable..

She wouldn’t take advantage of the situation, probably didn’t even register that it could be considered sexual, looking at TJ when he wasn’t fully clothed, because she was a professional and right now she’d given herself the job of keeping an eye on them both while Sam got a change of clothes. And if Steve found himself looking at nothing but his hands as he ran cold water over them it was not because he was thinking of how different it was when TJ pulled the shirt on in the hospital compared to how listlessly he’d pulled it off here.

“I think I’m going crazy,” TJ said at last, breaking the tense silence in the bathroom.

Steve looked up. TJ had his back to the door, face turned away from the mirror, so Steve could not see his expression. Instead, he found Natasha’s reflection. Her head tipped to the side, lips pursed together as she watched TJ’s naked back.

“I keep seeing things that don’t make any sense and thinking things that don’t make any sense and sometimes I stop thinking anything at all and just kinda go numb. It’s like I’m high but I know I’m not and there’s no way half the shit in my head is real because there’s too much of it and it hurts,” he said in a rush. Steve got the impression TJ would only say this once, might only have the nerve to admit his fears in this moment and this moment only.

And what a terrible fear it was, to think his mind was no longer safe.

“We can help you figure that out, as long as you don’t go all Rambo on me again and try to break my face,” Tony said from the doorway.

TJ nodded but did not turn around. He was isolated, steps away but so far it felt like he was on the moon and Steve was a kid with a telescope trying to see him through the clouds. He wanted to touch TJ again, hold him the way TJ had seemed to like when they were in the elevator, anything to help make the hopelessness in his voice vanish. It wasn’t fair. Steve could rescue him from HYDRA’s cell, but it made no difference if HYDRA had TJ locked up inside his own head.

It was the mistake he’d made before, thinking HYDRA was gone just because he couldn’t see them anymore.

“Here,” Sam said, slipping past Tony and Natasha to hand two soft cotton shirts over. Steve took them both and handed one to TJ. He took it, but made no move to put it on. 

Again, Steve caught Natasha’s reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were narrowed and considering.

She said something in Russian that Steve did not understand but it didn’t sound particularly harsh. At once TJ moved to pull the shirt on. Her lips thinned.

“We’ve had quite the exciting half hour and I, for one, think dinner and sleep are in order. Who’s with me? It’s my house, you’re all with me, what am I asking for?” Tony said. It was flippant and fast, but the suit slipped off of him piece by piece as he said it. The machine reassembled itself in the shape of a briefcase this time, one that Tony casually picked up as he sauntered away from the bathroom door.

“I think…If you don’t mind. I’d rather lie down,” TJ muttered.

“You’re not hungry?” That was concerning. Steve was ravenous. They hadn’t stopped for anything on the trip here because TJ was asleep most of the way. Unpleasant as it was to think about, the fact that nothing but stomach bile came up when TJ was sick meant his stomach was empty. With whatever HYDRA gave him to amp up his strength, he probably needed a higher calorie intake than he used to as well. He shouldn’t sleep without eating something first.

“Sure. Hey, that’s totally alright,” Sam said, the easy smile back in place. Tony made a disapproving face behind his back that seemed to echo Steve’s concerns, but he stayed silent as Sam gestured for TJ to follow him out of the bathroom.

“Your room is right between Steve’s and mine. Nat’s is down the hall. If you need anything at all, you can come to any of us,” he said as Natasha nodded. 

The fact that Sam and Natasha both were willing to reach out to TJ, were ready to help him and make him feel safe after everything he’d been through made Steve’s chest ache again, but in a good way this time. Aside from Bucky and Peggy, he’d never known anyone to dive headfirst into any trouble Steve found himself in. TJ wasn’t trouble, but trouble was certainly orbiting around him and having Sam—someone who understood trauma and recovery in a way Steve never could—and Natasha—a person he’d trust his life with—looking after TJ was well was a relief. Hell, even Tony had proved he was willing to go to bat for what amounted to a stranger.

It was the first time in a long, long time that Steve felt…happy wasn’t it exactly, but that was the best word he could come up with to describe the feeling.

“I need to cle—“TJ began. He made a small, hesitant step back towards the living room, but Steve set a gentle hand on his elbow. TJ stopped and looked back. His eyes were red rimmed and over-bright. It looked like he hadn’t slept in days, even though he’d spent the better part of the day napping in the car.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“I don’t understand why you’re all being so nice to me. Why are you all helping me?” TJ asked abruptly. He looked from Tony, who shrugged, to Natasha who remained impassive if polite, to Sam who replied, “Because it’s the right thing to do, and you didn’t deserve the shit that was done to you.”

But TJ shook his head hard, skepticism in every line of his body. He locked eyes with Steve, and the wild fear was creeping back into them. “What do you want from me? Everyone wants something. Is it because I look like your friend?”

If TJ had punched him it would have hurt less. He wasn’t helping because TJ looked like Bucky, not anymore. For the first few minutes, when Steve thought he had his friend back, yes, but not now. Bucky was like a ghost, haunting every second Steve spent in TJ’s presence, urging Steve to do better, be faster, be stronger, just as long as he didn’t let someone else down. Just so long as he didn’t let HYDRA destroy someone else’s life the way they did Bucky’s. TJ deserved better. It wouldn’t matter what face he wore, that fact wouldn’t change.

“It’s like Sam said; we’re helping you because it’s the right thing to do and because you deserve to live your life without HYDRA hanging over your head. You deserve to be safe and happy,” Steve said.

TJ dropped his gaze and shook his head. Without another word he slipped into the bedroom Sam indicated was his and closed the door. They shouldn’t end the conversation like that, unresolved and still so raw, but as Steve moved to follow Sam shook his head.

“Give him a little while. He needs some time to process.”

So Steve knelt, five minutes later, on his hands and knees in Tony’s living room with a bucket of soapy water and a sponge, dabbing at the discoloration on the white couch. Somehow much of the vomit missed the wood floor and instead ended up on upholstery. Natasha said she called Mrs. Barrish as soon as Steve and TJ pulled into the garage, so he didn’t have to worry about calling TJ’s mother and explaining what happened. Not calling her to explain what happened, on the other hand, left Steve feeling strongly like he was lying even if he wasn’t. Some days there was enough guilt draped across his shoulders that it honestly hurt to get up in the morning.

It was just…TJ seemed fine when they got out of the elevator. Lethargic and headachy, but in control. The unprovoked attack made no sense. He definitely called Tony Howard, which was just bizarre. And he’d gotten facts that should have been ingrained like muscle memory wrong, such as his own age. Even Steve knew the legal drinking age in New York, in all of the United States, was twenty-one now. He wanted to ask someone if TJ was known to have spoken Russian before the HYDRA kidnapping, but hadn’t gotten a chance to do so. Sam herded everyone away to give Steve a few moments to himself after TJ closed them out, which Steve hadn’t realized he needed as badly as he did until he was alone.

“Steve?”

Natasha stood in the doorway, Sam and Tony nowhere to be found. Maybe they were making food, like Tony suggested. He wouldn’t say no to something to eat. They could make a plate and bring it to TJ’s room if he didn’t feel up to going to the kitchen to eat.

Musings of dinner died with the softness of Natasha’s steps. Natasha was not soft unless she had to be, and she only felt like she had to be when she was manipulating someone. Steve had always appreciated the no-nonsense way Natasha approached their conversations up until the moment they went to rescue SHIELD hostages from a bunch of pirates Fury hired in the first place. It was then that Steve realized the no-nonsense attitude was a manipulation as well. Now, in the wake of all the destruction, Steve felt he was better equipped to know when Natasha was approaching him with honesty and her honesty still was not soft. It was not cruel, but it was not soft.

“I need to tell you something,” she said. Steve watched as, for a moment, she contemplated sitting on the couch—now resting right side up, but she reconsidered in light of discolored patch Steve was still cleaning. Instead, she sat on the floor, legs folded beneath her.

“That why you waited until the others were occupied?” he asked as he dropped the sponge back into the bucket of water. Whatever was coming was important to Natasha, important enough for her to think she needed to be soft. It deserved his undivided attention.

Natasha smiled. It was small and only reached half of her lips, but that was how Steve could tell it was real. The smile vanished again before she continued speaking. “You remember the file Tony wanted me to help translate?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah. The file about the Winter Soldier.”

She looked down at the bucket of water before looking back up. It was a bad sign. Natasha did not avoid eye contact unless whatever she had to say made her uncomfortable and she trusted the person enough to let them know she felt that way.

“The files aren’t all translated yet, I’m still working on them with JARVIS, but I’ve gone through a few of them. There are a lot. They date back a long time,” she said. “The first entry in the file is dated 1945.”

“The year I got caught in the ice,” Steve supplied, because it was obvious she’d wanted him to make that connection on his own.

Natasha nodded. “I translated the first few entries. They detail the re-capture and forced recruitment of an American soldier HYDRA had as a POW earlier in the war.”

For a moment the connection wasn’t there. He knew there was another logical leap she wanted him to make, but it didn’t want to come. Steve stared at Natasha and Natasha watched him back with as much softness as she could project and still mean it. HYDRA had scores of POWs during the war, captured entire battalions and did god knows what to them. It was what they did to—

He knew who the American soldier in the file was.

“Bucky,” Steve gasped. Natasha nodded. She did not look away as Steve went numb beside her. There was too much in his head, too much all at once, just like TJ kept saying. The dates had to be wrong, or the soldier mentioned in them had to be someone else, because Bucky died. Steve saw him die. He saw Bucky fall hundreds of feet from Zola’s train and if the file was talking about Bucky it would mean he hadn’t died in the fall and Steve hadn’t rescued him and that wasn’t possible, it wasn’t—

“It’s talking about someone else.” He did not make it a question because there was no way what Natasha was saying could be true. “Bucky died.”

Natasha placed a hand on his shoulder and it was nothing at all like when Steve had done the same with TJ. “They tried to interrogate the soldier, because Armin Zola had been captured by the Allied Forces. They thought he might know where Zola was being kept. All the soldier would tell them was his rank and serial number.”

Steve squeezed his eyes shut as tight as they could go. His ears were roaring like he was standing too close to a fire, like he was back in the inferno in Zola’s lab where he found Bucky strapped to that table, repeating his name and serial number over and over again.

“What were the numbers?” he croaked, because his throat was suddenly very, very tight.

For a moment there was silence, and then, softly, like an apology given over a freshly dug grave, “Rank: Sergeant. Serial Number: 32557038.”

The world spun, the roaring fire in Steve’s ears intensified until it was almost deafening but he was colder than he’d ever been before in his life.

Bucky’s rank. Bucky’s serial number.

“What are you telling me, Natasha? What does that mean?” Because he couldn’t make that leap, not this time.

Again, Natasha hesitated. Whatever was coming was going to hurt and she’d rather spare him the pain. It was the kindest gesture Natasha had ever shown him, but she knew how important truth was and her wish to spare his feelings did not outweigh her desire to give him whatever truth Steve needed.

“It means James Buchanan Barnes was the first candidate for the Winter Soldier program.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to Annaparma for editing this chapter. It is much more coherent now:)

“He called me Howard,” Tony said. He reached into a cabinet above the deep ceramic sink and pulled out a box of pasta. The contents within rattled as the box was slammed on the countertop.

Sam didn’t know Tony Stark very well, but he knew enough to realize he could open a can of worms here if he wasn’t careful. Anyone who knew anything knew that Howard Stark was not an affectionate man and anyone who knew anything knew Howard Stark died long before Tony Start was even a teenager. It was the sort of thing that used to get splashed across the front pages of cheap tabloids back when Tony was young and reckless: the heir to Stark Industries running wild again. If only he had parents to keep him in line. Sam could remember his mother clicking her tongue in sympathy each time a new story about Tony came out.

“Any idea why he might have called you that?” Because Sam had none. Tony didn’t look that much like his father... enough that they were obviously related, but that was it. And again, Howard Stark had been dead for over thirty years. TJ hadn’t even been born when Howard and Maria Stark ran off the road in a car accident. Bud Hammond was probably only just running for his first attempt at governor.

Tony shook his head. The case his suit folded down into sat beside the kitchen cabinets, within reach but out of the way of his frustrated rummaging for a pot. Once he found one suitable for his needs Tony set the pot into the sink and began to let it fill. He pursed his lips together as water rushed down from the tap.

“I don’t know. Stuff makes no sense. Everything the kid just did? No reason for it.”

He shut the water off and lifted the pot onto the stove. Everything in the kitchen was stainless steel and gleaming in the sort of clean way that indicated it had never been used before, which was odd when you took into account how well stocked the cabinets were. Natasha warned Sam before they even reached the garage of Stark Tower that Tony was eccentric and a tad overbearing. Sam was beginning to realize that translated to overly willing to throw money at a problem and more than happy to build a brand new apartment on a floor of his fancy sky rise in the event that someone needed a place to crash for the night.

It was insane, but the kind of insanity that spoke of a good heart. Sam was glad to know Steve and Natasha had a person like Tony in their corner after everything that went down in Washington. Tony was smart and he was a new set of eyes, ones that hadn’t been going from HYDRA stronghold to HYDRA stronghold weeding out the stragglers still infecting the country. He hadn’t seen TJ come out of that cell but he knew what it was like to be the one in the cell, something Sam and, he suspected, Steve, did not.  
Natasha was a mystery he couldn’t speak to.

“What actually happened?” Start with the basics and then work your way up- that was the proper way to get to the root of a problem. Take it in parts, keep it small and manageable.

Tony fiddled with the dials on the stove until fire sparked beneath the pot. He stepped back and leaned his hip against the counter to lock eyes with Sam. He held up his hand and began ticking off fingers. “Thomas Hammond is thirty years old; he said he was twenty-seven. Doesn’t matter if you’re too high to remember your birthday, it still counts. TJ called me Howard and sounded afraid when he said it. Dear old dad was definitely not a snuggler, but there’s still no way TJ could have known my father. Also, those Black Widow moves he pulled on me and Steve? Sexy, but still shouldn’t have been possible.”

Those were a lot of inconsistencies. One alone could have been excused as a moment of disorientation after everything that happened to him, but all of them together were a bit much to ignore. And hadn’t TJ spoken Russian in the bathroom, or had he just listened to what Natasha said to him when she spoke the language? Sam didn’t know enough about the Hammonds to know whether or not TJ was known for speaking Russian but it didn’t sound likely.

“Why did he attack you? You said you thought something you said was triggering, but do you have any idea what that something might have been?”

Tony shook his head. “I was joking. Asked if he wanted milk. He barely looks twenty, I would feel guilty offering him anything stronger. Plus, the whole addiction thing. Sponsor, buddy system. Better to play it safe, you know? I’m sure you know.”

That was true enough. TJ was thirty, that much Sam was sure of. He remembered the day Bud Hammond came to visit the air force base he was stationed on, right before he and Riley went out for the first live action run with the EXO-7. Bud sat through an entire air display of the EXO-7s before striding up to congratulate them both on a job well done. While shaking hands with Sam, one of Bud’s White House aides politely tapped him on the shoulder and gestured to the cell phone in her hand.

“Your wife, sir,” the aide said. “She wanted to remind you to call your sons. Today is their birthday.”

It always stuck with Sam, how odd it was that Bud Hammond had to be reminded of his own children’s birthdays. He was a good president, as far as anyone one could be, but that brief glimpse into his personal life was enough to illustrate how inaccurate the image of a family man he presented actually was. He’d looked more annoyed than anything else with the reminder. Sam might not read the tabloids but he knew TJ had been in a bad way before everything in Washington hit the fan.

And yeah, TJ looked young, but there were plenty of people who looked young for their age. It didn’t mean anything. Or, it wouldn’t if it wasn’t for everything else.

“It almost sounds like TJ’s going through disassociations. Like he’d distancing himself from reality,” Sam said. He sighed and rubbed his hands against his face. 

He didn’t like making a judgment about someone’s mental well-being without talking to them about it first, but nothing else really fit. It was the best explanation he could come up with until he got the chance to sit TJ down and talk to him about everything that happened.TJ. It’d only been two days since they pulled TJ out of the cell in that HYDRA base, and Sam hoped someone had spoken to him about the experience in a professional, mental health oriented manner, but Sam got the impression no one had. He got the impression a lot was forgotten when it came to the Hammond boys and TJ in particular. He’d seen the news report about last winter and how close TJ had come to hurting himself. It felt like a failure, having TJ here and hurting, but pushing too hard too soon could be just as problematic as ignoring the issue.

Tony shook his head again. Small bubbles were forming along the edges of the pot. “Look, I was getting out of the party scene at about the same time TJ was getting into it, but I remember what he was like. Kid could drink a whole handle of vodka on his own and not feel it. Used to take anything anyone offered him, and most of the time the drugs did nothing. But, sometimes someone gave him something strong enough to leave a mark. Anytime he got high or drunk at all the first thing he asked was; what year is it?”

And that was odd too. Of all the things to ask and all the things to not remember, why the year?

“Anyone ever find out why he kept forgetting the year?” It might be nothing, a quark of whatever drugs TJ used to take or whatever headspace he was in when he got intoxicated, but it wouldn’t hurt to know.

Tony shrugged. “No. There were always White House goons clustered around him when he got high, Secret Service and all that.

“Sounds like they did a wonderful job,” scoffed Sam.

“See, that’s the thing,” Tony said as he ripped the top off the pasta box and dumped all of it into the now boiling water. “They did a terrible job, back then and now. Kid used to wander off with complete strangers when he was high as a kite and the Secret Service guys never bat an eye. And they were supposed to be in his mother’s house when TJ got kidnapped, but none of them saw the goons that took him.”

Sam frowned. “That’s not suspicious at all.”

“You realize that TJ looked exactly like James Barnes, right? That’s not something I’m making up, everyone else sees that too, yeah?”

Yeah, everyone else saw that too. It was hard not to, especially after how heartbroken Steve looked when he found out he hadn’t magically gotten his best friend back. To be honest, it was a comparison someone should have made a long time ago. Once Steve pointed the similarities out it was impossible to not see it. For every news outlet and gossip rag in the country to not point something like that out as soon as Captain America was back in action was odd, in retrospect.   
Someone should have seen the similarities between TJ Hammond and James Barnes a long time ago.

But that was all it was, a similarity. They were not the same person and as much as Steve wanted to do the right thing, it was important that he kept that in mind when he dealt with TJ. So far he’d been managing alright, but it concerned Sam a little to see how quickly Steve latched onto TJ and vice-versa. There was nothing wrong with finding comfort in the person that rescued you after undergoing an ordeal as trying as TJ’s, and there was nothing wrong with wanting to make sure he was safe until the HYDRA threat was sorted out, but only as long as everyone involved realized why they were doing what they were doing. Steve was a good guy, he wasn’t going to project his feelings for his old friend onto TJ intentionally, but even the best of people needed help sometimes and Sam would have to be walking around with his eyes closed not to see that Steve was a tangled up mess inside.

And TJ? Hell, everyone knew about the many struggles TJ faced and everyone knew about each and every one he lost to, because slow news days always picked up when TJ landed himself in the hospital for one reason or another.

“Any idea where Natasha is? I want to know how far she got on the translations. I have a sneaking suspicion that’s going to be really, really problematic,” Tony muttered. He glared down at the boiling water like it had personally offended him.

“Probably sitting with Steve in the living room. He’s trying to straighten up.” Sam gestured for Tony to follow him out of the room. The pasta would be fine for a few minutes. Really, Steve should have some time to himself in order to process everything that’d happened in the last few weeks, but Natasha hadn’t seemed interested in giving him alone time. It was possible she needed the assurance that Steve was alive and safe after all the craziness, and Sam wasn’t going to begrudge her that. He was more concerned with whether or not they were both going to be alright now the pillars on which they built their worlds were gone.

Steve was not in the living room when they got there, but Natasha was. She was kneeling in front of the couch, damp cloth in hand as she rubbed at the material absently. For half a second Sam wanted to tell her that wasn’t the way to get stains out of fabric. He wanted to tell her that rubbing was only going to make it worse, she’d have to press the imperfections out slowly. It was the first mundane thing he’d seen Natasha do poorly, and it was kind of endearing to see there were some things she wasn’t frighteningly perfect at.

The impulse lasted only a moment before the faraway look in her eyes registered. Natasha was nothing at all like Steve, who only pretended to wear his heart on his sleeve and bleed for the whole world to see. The only pain he showed was the pain from the shallow wounds, the survivable hurts. He didn’t talk about the big things, the things that still throbbed and ached and kept him from sleeping in soft beds or knowing what to do with himself outside of war.

Natasha, on the other hand, showed nothing. She smiled, tossed a smoothly sarcastic comment or keen observation out whenever one was needed, but the rest she kept locked up   
tight. Sometimes Sam thought she legitimately didn’t know how to react to a situation without guidance, without someone ‘normal’ to use as a counterpoint. Steve said once that Natasha was still finding herself, and Sam believed it. That was why he felt a jolt of concern when she looked up from the couch and did not let the shutters fall back over her eyes.

“Steve’s in his room,” she said without prompting.

“His room, huh? Not TJ’s?” Tony asked, something sharp in his tone.

Natasha narrowed her eyes. “His room. Why?”

Tony waved the suspicion away and flopped down on the clear armrest of the couch. His feet dangled slightly, so that just the tips of his toes touched the floor. It was never going to stop amusing Sam to know he was taller than Tony Stark.

“Calm down, I just meant that Capsicle might not have realized TJ’s got a bit of a crush. I have no idea what opinions about two guys being together were back in Cap’s time and I don’t want him being rude to TJ,” said Tony. He sounded tired.

It hadn’t occurred to Sam that Steve might not know TJ was gay, that he’d been out and open about it since he was a teenager in the White House. Hell, Sam remembered the news covering who TJ took to his high school prom with only a hint of humor when both TJ and his date had matching tuxedos. And, now he thought of it, Sam realized he had no idea what Brooklyn in the 1940’s would have thought about homosexuality either, but with the way Steve kept looking at TJ it seemed unlikely to be an issue.

Natasha considered Tony’s reasoning for a moment, lips pressed together to form a thin line. She dropped the rag back into the bucket of water beside her and sat back. “Steve isn’t going to care. If he’s not interested, he’ll be a perfect gentleman when he tells TJ.”

“And, if he is interested, is that going to be because TJ looks like dear old departed Bucky?”

At once the sharpness was back in Natasha’s eyes. “Don’t say that around him. Not right now.”

“Why?” Tony demanded with challenge. “Because of TJ?”

“No, because of the file on the Winter Soldier.”

That took the wind right out of Tony’s sails. He seemed to deflate on the arm of the couch. He and Natasha looked at each other in silence for a long moment, Natasha’s face blank and Tony’s searching. It was like no one else existed for a moment while they tried to silently determine what information they wanted to share with one another and what information was better kept concealed. It spoke volumes for the trust Natasha had in Tony and Sam himself that she broke the silence first.

“The files go back to the first time Zola captured the 107th infantry and began his experiments on James Buchanan Barns. Most of the entries date past the moment Barnes fell from the train,” Natasha said. She sounded calm when she spoke, but there was something soft around her eyes, a hesitation in the corner of her lips. “I told Steve. Thought he had the right to know. He didn’t take it well.”

Sam sighed. The hits just keep on coming and Steve didn’t seem capable of catching a break. First he wakes up to find out everyone he knew was pretty much dead, then he finds out the organization he dedicated his new life to was corrupt, discovers on top of everything else that HYDRA hadn’t been wiped out in WWII, had actually thrived while he was sleeping, and to top it all off he sees the walking ghost of his best friend and learns the actual Bucky Barnes lived long enough to become a lab rat for Nazis a second time. It was enough to break a lesser man, and it was enough to destroy Steve if he didn’t deal with the emotions he had bottled up inside. None of this suffering in silence bullshit, Steve was going to explode if he didn’t talk to someone about this.

“I’m going to go check on him,” Sam said. It was moments like this that made him wish he was a fully fledged psychologist and not just a certified counselor. Who did people like Steve or Natasha or Tony turn to when they needed help healing their mind and not just their bodies? With the shit they’d all been through trying to keep people safe from everything from evil organizations to aliens from outer space it would take a special kind of training to even hope to handle their needs. Sam was out of his depth, but he would do the best he could to keep the rest of them from drowning.

“Hold up.” Tony placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder and waited long enough to get a nod before turning back to Natasha. “How far did you get in the translations with JARVIS?”

“Not far. The Russian is written in a secondary code as well. I broke it and gave JARVIS the legend so he could rearrange the text into proper Russian,” Natasha admitted. “It’s all in idioms, even if he translated the files into English it wouldn’t make sense without someone who knows the turns of phrase for translating. They really didn’t want what was in those files read by the wrong people.”

“Good thing we’re not the wrong people,” Sam said. Natasha flashed him a smile full of teeth.

“Don’t go chronological. Start from the most recent entry and work your way back,” Tony said. He stood up suddenly. A finger tapped against his chin and he muttered something under his breath and then he looked up at the ceiling like there was someone there to make eye contact with. “JARVIS, buddy, do a search. Flag the names Hammond, Donald, Elaine, Thomas, or any iteration thereof.”

“Of course, sir,” the disembodied voice said pleasantly. It did not creep Sam out that there was a robot running the building and listening to everything they said. It did not.  
Because Tony promised JARVIS wasn’t in anyone’s room or any of the bathrooms.

It was the little comforts that really counted.

“Sir, fifteen flags have been placed in the file,” JARVIS said barely three seconds later.

Tony, Sam and Natasha exchanged glances. It did not bode well to have any of those names pop up in a classified, highly encrypted, super-secret HYDRA file.

Natasha was on her feet instantly. She strode from the room with single-minded purpose. Tony and Sam hurried to follow her. The elevator doors were already open and waiting when they arrived. No one spoke on the short trip down one floor, or when the doors opened again to reveal the messy, massive lab Tony had ushered them into yesterday night when they first arrived. The cup of coffee he’d greeted Natasha with as she began her translations sat cooling on the edge of a massive computer set up that Sam did not even kid himself into thinking he would understand anytime this century. Hell, Natasha didn’t even try pushing any of the buttons, she just told JARVIS what she wanted done and the computer did it. Only Tony dared to lay hands on the keys.

“Pull up the flags, in reverse chronological order, I want the most recent one first,” he said.

Natasha sat herself down in the chair she’d vacated two hours earlier when word of Steve and TJ’s arrival filtered down to them. She insisted on going up to the guest floor and inspecting the bedrooms before Steve or TJ used them—to be sure things were in order, she said. To assure herself nothing that shouldn’t be there had found its way in after Washington, Sam and Tony knew but neither said anything about the caution.

A document in tiny Cyrillic covered the massive computer screen. Seemingly random sections were highlighted in yellow. Natasha narrowed her eyes and tipped her head slightly to the side. “JARVIS, can you pull up a word document alongside it? I’m going to translate as I read.”

“Of course, Ms. Romanov.” And at once a blank document appeared on the screen beside the Cyrillic.

“Whose name was highlighted in this one?” Tony asked. He tapped on the computer screen, right above the first of the highlighted words.

“Donald. And Hammond,” Natasha replied. She sounded ice cold.

Before Sam could ask what context the document mentioned Donald in, and if that Donald was indeed Donald “ Bud” Hammond, a string of musical notes began to issue from his back pocket. With a soft apology he pulled the cell phone and stepped away from the computer.

The number was unknown and that set of alarm bells in the back of Sam’s mind at once. No one should be calling this number unless he knew who they were, not at a time like this. He considered not picking up at all, thoughts of phone traces and taps filtering through his mind, but in the end Sam swiped across his screen and answered the call. If this was a problem, better to know now then when it came knocking at Tony’s door.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Where is my son?” Bud Hammond sounded angry, angrier than Sam had ever heard him during any point of his presidency.

He glanced at Tony and Natasha. Tony was watching him, one eyebrow raised, but Natasha had not torn her focus away from the computer screen. Her fingers moved in a blur across the keyboard, so now Tony wasn’t the only one to touch his computers.

“Mr. Hammond, I think—“ Sam began, intentionally saying the name out loud so that everyone knew whom he was speaking to.

“I know you have my son. Or, Steve Rogers has my son and you know where he is. I want my son back in his hospital bed here in DC in six hours or so help me, I will bury you people,” Bud growled.

Sam hesitated. He couldn’t tell if the anger was a mask for concern or not. Did he have a right to keep the location of this man’s child hidden after everything the Hammonds had been through? Until Natasha said otherwise, the Donald in that file could be anyone. It wasn’t like Donald was a particularly rare name.

“TJ is safe, sir, that’s all I can tell you right now,” Sam said because this was a parent who’s child had been kidnapped for the better part of a month. Bud deserved to know that TJ hadn’t been snatched up by HYDRA again, if nothing else.

Across the room, Natasha pushed back from the chair and stood so quickly Tony had to dive to keep the chair from crashing to the ground.

“JARVIS, put Sam’s call on speaker phone,” she said. Her voice made Sam startle. He’d never heard anyone sound quite so cold.

“Mr. Wilson, if you don’t mind?” JARVIS asked.

“Go right ahead,” Sam replied. He held the phone out, forgetting until the last second that there was no one to take it from him.

At once the rustling statist of someone breathing over the line of a telephone filled the room. Natasha hadn’t taken her eyes off the computer screen. A new document was up in place of the first one and as her eyes skimmed over the Cyrillic her spine stiffened and her lip curled back in disgust.

“You don’t need to worry about your son, Mr. Hammond,” she said, and she sounded so sweet, so kind, that for a moment Sam thought he must be imagining the pure hate blooming on her face. “We received intelligence that another HYDRA cell was in the vicinity and managed to smuggle him out of the hospital before they got there. A rendezvous point will be sent to your email in twenty-four hours.”

Silence greeted her words for a long, tense moment during which Sam crept across the room as quietly as possible, so that his footsteps would not echo into the phone.

“Ms. Romanoff, you’re still with Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers?” Bud asked. It sounded like the words were hard to get out.

“Yes. We’ll keep your son safe, don’t worry. We won’t let HYDRA get anywhere near him. How did the interrogation of the doctor found in the base go? You wanted to be present when the questions were conducted, right?” Natasha continued. She typed something else up on the screen.  
Tony and Sam shifted behind her, each looking over a shoulder at the words she wrote. 

TEST SUBJECT 37569 RESPONSIVE TO MEMORY STIMULATION. UNRESPONSIVE TO MEMORY DELETION. AS AGENT HAMMOND NOTED, PHASE TWO MEMORIES RESURFACE AS PHASE THREE MEMORIES ARE REPRESSED. SUBJECT 37569 PROJECTED DEPLOYMENT DATE: THREE WEEKS.  
The document was dated a week before Steve lead them into the HYDRA base where they found TJ. Below that paragraph, dated almost a year earlier Natasha scribed;

TEST SUBJECT 37569 EXPOSED TO 3.4 g COCAINE TO NO ILL EFFECTS. TEST SUBJECT 37569 EXPOSED TO FOURTH INSTALLMENT OF TURRITOPSIS DOHRNII RD-669 DRUG. REGRESSION OF 3.5 YEARS IN CELLULAR STRUCTURE OF TEST SUBJECT 37569 RECORDED. SUBJECT SENT BACK TO FIELD WITH AGENT HAMMOND—AGENT HAMMOND REQUESTS REDUCTION IN TOXIC SUBSTANCE TESTS, SIGHTED SPILLOVER INTO TEST SUBJECT 37569’S DAY-TO-DAY ACTIVITIES. COMMANDER PIERCE INSTRUCTS DOSAGE AND FREQUENCY OF EXPOSER INCREASE TO MONITOR SUBJECT 37569’S RESISTANCE.

“No…No, the doctor didn’t tell us anything. He hung himself in his jail cell before we could ask him any questions,” Bud said into the silence.

For a long moment Sam could not process what he was reading. He thought they were supposed to be finding the name Donald in the files, but the only name that was in the text   
Natasha transcribed was Hammond. And that name, while still common enough, hit far too close to home for comfort. Natasha typed again, and this time it was a message for   
Tony and Sam, not a transcription of what she’d been reading. While she typed she addressed Bud once more.

“That tends to be the HYDRA way. Surprised he didn’t use cyanide. We’ll keep you informed of any updates, sir, but in the meantime, let us keep your son safe. All accounts point to you and your wife being the actual targets. Your son was just a bargaining chip to HYDRA,” she lied.

“Well…” Bud said after a long pause. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. I want that rendezvous point in twenty-four hours.”

“Of course.”

On the computer screen she wrote: BUD HAMMOND IS HYDRA.

The phone line went dead.


	8. Chapter 8

A BIG thank you to Annaparma for editing this chapter. It has been made infinitely better now:) Also, just as a warning, this chapter will give a brief description of a murder scene. It's not particularly graphic, but if that's in any way triggering or upsetting to you I wanted to be sure to warn you. Please check the endnotes for the particulars about it.

 

The halls of the prison were stark gray and meant to intimidate. The white linoleum of the floor made sharp clicking sounds as Elaine marched between the heavy steel doors lining the walls. Behind one of these doors sat the man that had helped experiment on, torture, and degrade her son. A man she’d trusted to sooth TJ’s aches and pains, his broken bones, and boyhood fevers. She still had Kevin Anderson on her Christmas card list.

Elaine was going to make him regret ever setting eyes on her son.

“Why TJ? Out of all of us, why is it him that this stuff keeps happening to?” Douglas muttered. He frowned at one of the doors as they passed, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. He rubbed his arms absently, like he was cold. Maybe he was—there was a recycled tang to the air and a cool nip that spoke of air conditioning—but most probably it had more to do with where they were than the temperature.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” Elaine said. She kept her voice firm, back ramrod straight. Because if she didn’t she might buckle under that very question. Bad things did happen to TJ in an absurdly disproportionate rate, like someone was actively trying to hurt him. She might have been blind to it before, but not now. Not with Fred Collier looking to throw him back into the public eye.

Douglas didn’t know about Fred’s plan or his new bill proposal, not yet. He had no idea that the de-facto president wanted to use TJ as the poster child for enhanced human registration or that someone close to them had let slip the strange new strength TJ’s time in captivity resulted in. Douglas didn’t even know that his brother had been spirited away from the hospital uptown because Mom had made sure to stop Anne before she told anyone he was gone. Bud didn’t know yet either, and Elaine dreaded having that conversation.

A shrieking siren began to wail, echoing through the building. Their guide, an older , solid looking ex-marine turned NSA, made a sweeping motion for Elaine and Douglas to move closer to the wall and clear a path. Phillip dashed in front of them, arms spread wide to hide Elaine and Douglas behind his considerable bulk.

“Is it a jail break?” Douglas asked. His eyes were wide in his pale face as he looked up and down the hallway.

“No, it’s an emergency alert,” the guard—he wore no name tag for security reasons—said briskly. He angled his head to look up and down the hall as well. At the first sign of a group of three dressed in blue hospital scrubs, one of whom clutched a medical bag close, dashing towards them he relaxed enough to cant his hip to the side and cross his arms over his chest. He watched the medics run past with only mild interest and the expression of one used to rolling with the unexpected.

“Where are they going?” Elaine asked. She slipped out from behind Phillip’s arm, ignoring his sound of displeasure. Douglas was slower to emerge from behind the comforting bulk of another body. By the time he began moving again Elaine was already trotting down the hall to catch up with the medics.

She turned the corner to the right, the only direction she could go except back the way she’d come. The muscles in Elaine’s back tightened and her stomach rolled as she saw the numbers on the wall beside each cell door. Each number corresponded to a particular cell, a specific prisoner. Cell 127-D was open. Two men nearly identical in build and bearing to her guide stood on either side of the open door. They squinted at her with varying degrees of suspicion until their counterpart Phillip as well as Douglas rounded the corner.

“She’s with me,” their guide said. “Secretary of State Barrish is here to speak to one of the inmates.”

The man on the right shook his head. “Hope she wasn’t here to talk to this guy,” he said with a tip of his head toward the open door.

“In fact, I was here to speak with Kevin Anderson,” she said, still striding forward.

Both men stepped inward, blocking the door and her view of the inside of the cell. “You don’t want to go in there ma’am,” the one on the left said.

“Not something a respectable woman should have to see,” the one on the right added.

It was a nice sentiment, but she wasn’t a wilting flower. She was a woman with a mission and no outdated sense of chivalry was going to stop her from getting answers to her questions. Elaine pushed her way past the two men. She was under no illusions that, had her guide not given a nod of approval, she could have made either agent step aside, but they did. Douglas’ gasp echoed against the back wall of the cell. Elaine felt her stomach drop past her toes and then all she felt was cold. Numbing, all consuming cold.

Kevin Anderson, former pediatrician for both Hammond children, was pale and still on his cot. There was a blue tinge to his lips and a red tinge to his eyes, but it was the bruising around his throat that Elaine could not tear her eyes away from. She’d never seen a dead body before, never thought she would have to, and there was something deeply, terribly unsettling about the way a small part of her wanted to say, “Good. That’s what you get for harming my child.”

The rest of her remembered two AM phone calls about fevers and colic, teething pain and chickenpox. Kevin Anderson was the most dedicated physician she’d ever met, he never failed to answer her calls or sooth her fear in those early years when the boys were young, her relationship with her mother was strained, and Elaine had felt alone in a way she’d never experienced before. Bud was there, but so many things pulled him away, so much demanded his attention, that for the first year of Douglass and TJ’s life, Elaine may as well have been a single mother. Without Dr. Anderson answering all her questions and soothing her new-parent jitters, Elaine sometimes felt like she would have gone mad.

Kevin Anderson helped experiment on her son. He worked with and possibly for Hydra. By all logic, he could have been monitoring their family, or poisoning her children for years, and Elaine still felt a sense of loss in this moment, staring down at his body, that threatened to consume her.

“What happened?” Phillip asked.

One of the three medics looked up from examining the marks around Kevin’s neck. The medic shook her head and looked grim. “I’m not sure.” She gestured around the room and the blanket-less cot, the toilet and sink. “It looks like he’s been strangled, but there’s nothing in here to strangle himself with and no one has entered or exited the room that wasn’t here on official business and documented.”

“So someone broke in,” Elaine said. Her voice was as steady and cold as she felt.

Another medic shifted uncomfortably beside the cot. He glanced at the NSA agent who’d guided Elaine to the room and then the two on either side of the door before turning back to Elaine herself. “That’s just it. The marks look like they’re self inflicted. Like he strangled himself to death with his own hands,” the medic clarified.

What could make a man do that to himself? More importantly, was something like that even possible? It didn’t seem so, and that made the cold sink in a little deeper. Someone killed Kevin Anderson before Elaine got a chance to speak with him. She couldn’t prove someone killed Kevin before she could speak to him, but her gut insisted it was the truth and Elaine had learned long ago to trust her gut. Maybe it was coincidence that Kevin died the day she came to speak with him, or maybe it was someone actively trying to cover their tracks. Someone like an organization that worked in shadow and mystery. An organization like HYDRA.

“What cell is the other man arrested from the HYDRA facility being kept in?” Elaine asked her guide.

He sucked his cheek in between his teeth in contemplation for a moment before admitting, “134-A. It’s around the next corner and to the left.”

Elaine wasted no time. Without a word she darted from the room and half ran, half marched to 134-A. She was going to get her answers, and if this hadn’t been a coincidence the other detainee might be next on the list of casualties. Phillip told her on the drive over how odd it was to have not one but two HYDRA agents in captivity. Apparently, during WWII cyanide capsules came standard with memberships and most choose to die with their secrets before giving them up. Phillip said the few identifiable HYDRA agents they found now in the DC fiasco swallowed the cyanide. Kevin hadn’t taken that option, and it was the little bit of hope Elaine had that maybe there was an explanation to all this. Maybe Kevin hadn’t actually been torturing the same child he’d spent years caring for.

The doors to each cell were locked by a keypad, and in her rush Elaine hadn’t thought to ask for the code to enter Brock Rumlow’s cell. As a result she stood outside the door, waiting for Phillip, Douglas and the NSA agent to catch up with her. The NSA agent reached her first, rounding the corner at a steady trot. He raised an eyebrow towards the door and waited expectantly.

“I need to speak with this man,” Elaine said, when it became clear he was waiting for some sort of explanation.

“Ma’am, I’m going to need a little more than that if I’m going to open that door. The higher ups gave me instructions to let you speak with the prisoner in room 127-D, not the one in this room,” he said.

Elaine drew herself up to her full height. She was not as tall as this man, but she could still look his square in the eyes. Neither acknowledged Douglas or Phillip when they rounded the corner because this battle of wills would not end until one of them won.

“As Secretary of State, I have privileges that supersede your chain of command,” Elaine said. “I can make a call and that door with be opened for me, and you will be reprimanded for delaying this process. But,” she added as the man’s expression began to grow shrewder and less open to the conversation. “But. I’m not asking you as the Secretary of State to unlock that door. I’m asking you as a mother who needs to look into the eyes of the man that nearly killed my son and ask him why.”

At that some of the stiffness began to leave the agent’s body. He glanced at the door, at Douglas, and then back to Elaine herself. “The Hammond kid. Your kid. You found him?”

Elaine nodded. She’d assumed the news covered the fact that TJ had been rescued, but maybe not. There were, after all, more exciting things than TJ to occupy the news nowadays.

The man narrowed his eyes at the closed door. “The prisoner in there is part of HYDRA. His group is responsible for the destruction of half of DC.”

“I know,” Elaine said.

“And that guy had your son for a month.”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, he did.”

The NSA agent gave a disgusted grunt under his breath and began to stab at the key on the keypad. “I can give you fifteen minutes with the guy. Your bodyguard goes in with you, the other guy stays out here.”

“But—“ Douglas began, stepping forward at last.

Elaine cut him off. They didn’t have the luxury of arguing about this. “You’ll be out here waiting?” She left the question of whether or not he would be keeping an eye on Douglas unsaid, but the man seemed to understand what she meant anyway. He gave a serious nod, keeping eye contact.

“Good, thank you. We’ll be out momentarily,” Elaine said, and she and Phillip stepped into the room.

The set up was exactly the same as Kevin’s cell. One cot built into the wall and made of metal so it could not be splintered or chipped, a sink and a toilet. Brock Rumlow sat on his cot, back pressed into the corner it shared with the angles of the wall so his back was supported and he could watch the door. The left side of his face was covered in a large, circular bruise and there were bandages on his right arm that showed even under the gray uniform they had him in. He was closer to Elaine’s age than not, though still younger, but something grim clung to him so that, despite his smile, he seemed aged.

“Madam Secretary, I was wondering if you’d show up,” he said and his voice sounded like gravel trapped in a disposal.

“Why did HYDRA take my son?” Elaine asked. There was no point in preambles, no reason at all to pretend she was here for anything other than the answer to that specific question.

Rumlow laughed. It was low and small, more a chuckle than anything else. He looked up at her from beneath his lashes and maybe she might have seen someone flirty and kind had she not known whom this man was. The data leaked with the destruction of Alexander Pierce's Insight ships were many and deep, but Elaine had navigated them enough to know that he was dangerous.

“Right to the point. Always direct. It’s what we liked about you,” Rumlow said. He leaned forward to place his forearms on his legs so he could watch her more closely.

“Who is ‘we?’ If it doesn’t include whoever ordered you to take my son, I’m not interested.”

“I’m not going to tell you why HYDRA took your kid,” he said.

Elaine moved forward, but the soft press of Phillip’s fingers into her elbow halted the motion. He didn’t want her to get too close, and Elaine could appreciate that. Where she stood by the door left about a half foot between herself and Rumlow. All she wanted to do was close that distance and hurt him. The cold inside was growing, narrowing her focus.

“You obviously want to talk, or you would have taken the cyanide pill I’m sure you had when you were arrested. Most of HYDRA’s agents choose death over capture. You didn’t, so you have something to say to someone,” Elaine challenged.

Rumlow nodded. “Yeah, but it’s not going to be about that.”

“Was the kidnapping even about TJ? Or was it about me or my ex-husband?” Douglas would have been a better option if all they wanted was someone who could make Elaine and Bud listen to them. Bud had a connection with Douglas he’d never had with TJ, and Douglas knew more of the inner workings of government than TJ could ever hope to grasp.

But Rumlow shook his head. “It wasn’t about you or your husband.”

“If you do not answer my questions you are going to be a very, very sorry man,” Elaine said softly. She didn’t recognize her own voice, it was too hard and too cold, but it got Rumlow to sit up straight again and that was what mattered.

“Lady, I’m in a high security prison that isn’t even on the map. Half my body is covered in burns and the other half got stomped into bone bruises by Captain America. What could you possibly do to make things worse?”

This time Elaine ignored Phillip’s signal to stay back. She crossed the distance between them and towered over Rumlow where he sat on the cot. “Do you have children, Brock?” she asked, still in that soft, cold tone.

Rumlow shook his head silently. Elaine leaned closer, until her face was all he could see. “Then you don’t know what it’s like to have someone else’s life matter more than your own. You don’t know the strength with which you can love them and you don’t know the viciousness you can sink to when someone hurts them. Tell me what HYDRA wanted with my son, or I will make sure you never see the light of day again.”

And she meant it. No matter what it took, Rumlow would pay for putting that haunted look on TJ’s face. Treason was a capital offence, and Rumlow was a traitor.

After a moment Rumlow smiled. Actually let his lips creep open into a crooked grin as he looked at her. “You mean that too. That’s why we were rooting for you. Order through pain,” he added. “You understand.”

“What are you talking about?” Elaine demanded. She straightened up, and glared down at Rumlow.

He shrugged with the un-bandaged shoulder. “We wanted you to take over after the president died, but that idiot Fred Collier got the position instead. He wasn’t on the plane. Had we known he would do our work for us, we might have been backing him instead.”

Backing Fred Collier. Backing her. Natasha Romanov already said HYDRA killed Paul Garcetti, but it was one thing to hear that when she thought it had nothing to do with her and another thing entirely now that Rumlow was implying HYDRA had a successor in mind. And why would they want Elaine? She knew enough about HYDRA from her history books to know that none of their ideals were her own. She was opposed to everything they stood for, always had been and always would be.

Unless they had her child as leverage. Unless they thought kidnapping TJ was enough to make her listen to whatever they asked her to do. Unless Rumlow had been lying through his teeth before when he said the kidnapping wasn’t about her.

And they thought Fred was walking the path they wanted to force her down all on his own. Which begged the question, was Fred Collier HYDRA or was he being manipulated somehow?

“What work is he doing for you?”

Rumlow said nothing and continued to smile.

The cold began to thaw, melted by the slowly building rage burning in Elaine’s stomach. She wanted to tear this man apart. She wanted to make him look at her with the same fear he’d put into TJ’s eyes, but nothing she said seemed to reach him.

“I’m not going to let you people hurt my son again,” she growled. “And I’m not going to let Fred blindly lead this country into whatever sick plot you have in mind.”

And now Rumlow looked engaged with the conversation. He leaned forward again and narrowed his eyes up at her. “Go ahead and tell Collier whatever you want, it’s not going to make a difference. That man understands nothing. He fears pain. He’s not going to hear you no matter what you say to him.”

Which was a fairly good indicator that Fred wasn’t HYDRA but it did not bode well even with that assurance. If Rumlow wasn’t going to tell her anything about TJ at least she could get this piece of information back to the people that could do something about it.

“And, Madam Secretary, to answer your question, no I don’t have kids,” Rumlow added, leaning further forward still. His eyes were as hard as Elaine’s. There was more focus in them now than there had been since she walked in. This, she realized at once, this was what he’d been wanting to say to her all along. Maybe not the information he’d chosen not to die in order to impart, but definitely the thing he thought she needed to know.

“ I understand this world well enough to know not to bring another life into it. You think the world’s going to let you keep that kid?” he scoffed. “If it’s not HYDRA snatching him back, or that fuck-wit of a president ferreting him away to parade around with that bill, it’ll be Rogers who takes the kid away.”

That brought Elaine up short. She’d been concerned that Rumlow, in a prison cell for the last three days and cut off from the rest of the world, still seemed to know what was going on outside these walls and within closed meeting, but the way Rumlow said Steve Roger’s name was enough to halt that concern on the spot. No one had ever said Steve Roger’s name that way. Like they legitimately feared not the man but the actions he could take.

The fact that Rumlow somehow knew that Steve was with TJ made a cold and slithering something inch down her spine. Who was giving him this information? Only family, and a small percentage of that, knew that TJ was with Steve Rogers and his associate rather than in the hospital.

“The president will leave TJ alone, and so will HYDRA if it knows what’s good for it,” Elaine said. She stepped away from the cot. It was time to leave, time to get somewhere private so she could call the number Romanov gave her and share this latest information.

“Rogers isn’t going to let him go. Trust me,” Rumlow said, and it was almost like an apology and a warning all mixed into one.

Elaine glanced back at him once she reached the door. This was a game somehow, it had to be. The only clear ally Elaine had in this fight for TJ’s safety was Steve Rogers and his associates. Their intentions to hunt down HYDRA and Steve Roger’s dedication to keeping TJ safe were the only things Elaine felt sure of regarding the kidnapping.

“Captain Rogers will do his duty and that’s all.”

Rumlow shook his head. He contemplated her for a long moment, weighing something in his head. Finally he rose to his feet. At once Phillip was between Elaine and the cot, hand on his hip and the gun stashed away there. Rumlow spared Phillip a glance and then dismissed him in favor of watching Elaine.

“I believe in the cause, but I’m still human. And I’m telling you, you’re going to regret ever letting Rogers set eyes on that kid. It’s the sort of thing that makes a lot of people…uncomfortable,” he said at last.

Before Elaine could ask what that meant the door swung open. The NSA agent motioned for them to leave the room, sharp gaze tracked on Rumlow who in return backed up and sat once more on the cot. Elaine allowed herself to be ushered from the cell. As soon as the doors closed behind her she began to walk back the way they’d come, her pace fast and determined.

“Did he tell you anything useful?” Douglas asked, struggling to keep up.

Elaine opened her mouth, prepared to recount the conversation, and then she snapped it closed again. Loathe as she was to admit it, Rumlow had at least shown her the truth about one thing. Until she knew who was leaking the information about TJ no one could know what she’d said in that cell or what she’d been told.

Someone close to TJ was HYDRA. Someone within the family.

As she exited the building, Douglas and Phillip in toe, the insistent buzzing of her phone caused Elaine to slow her hurried steps to the car. The number was unlisted, which gave her a good indication of who would be on the other line. Now was not the time to have this conversation, not with Douglas and Phillip so close, but if Romanov was calling it might be because something happened to TJ.

“I just need a second,” Elaine said, purposefully making her tone distracted and annoyed, as if it were a work call she did not want to answer. At their understanding nods she stepped just out of hearing range and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Madam Secretary, we have something important to talk about,” Romanov said from the other end of the phone. “Are you alone?”

“No. And there is information you should have as well,” Elaine said. She tried not to let her heart jump to her thought at the sound of tension in Romanov’s voice but it was difficult.

A moment of silence passed and then, “Is Bud Hammond with you?”

“No. Why?”

Another moment of silence followed. She could hear Romanov sigh into the phone, and then, “Elaine,” she said and that was bad as well because Natasha Romanov has never used Elaine’s given name before, “Bud’s with HYDRA. He helped them kidnap TJ.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kevin Anderson, from way back in the first two chapters, is strangled in his jail cell and descriptions of his injuries are given.


	9. Chapter 9

Sean caught TJ’s hands and moved them up to pin on either side of his head. It was one of the things TJ liked most about Sean, the way he took control of moments like this. So often it came down to TJ leading his partners along, showing them how to touch, how to be in the moment but not with Sean. Sean jumped into things head first and with gusto. He was the one that sought TJ out after the brief encounter at the grocery store that day—not unusual for a closeted politician—and he’d been so gallant about the whole affair, so old fashion. He brought flowers the first time he came to spend the night with TJ.

Sean pressed down, rolling his hips into TJ’s and laughed. TJ pressed up and groaned at the warming, wonderful friction the motion created. He loved Sean, actually, truly loved Sean the way he hadn’t loved anyone else in his long list of hookups. Sean was different, Sean was like the sun after a dark night. He was kind, principled, fought for gay rights even though his party was opposed to the idea. Sean told him once that he wasn’t a fan of bullies and TJ was pretty sure that was the moment he lost his heart to the beautiful blond haired, blue eyed congressman.

And then someone threatened to go to the press, tell them all that Sean, a married man, was sleeping around—and with another man no less. But TJ didn’t want to think about that now, not when Sean was here, kissing him and loving him again. There was something wrong with the moment—Sean kept looking off, one second he was smaller and younger and like he might be ill and the next he was bigger, taller, bursting with life—and then he was just Sean again.

“Mr. Hammond, I need your assistance,” Sean said as he trailed kisses beneath TJ’s jaw and down his chest.

“Hmm?” TJ asked distractedly. He was far more interested in the wet suction of Sean’s lips against his collarbone.

“Mr. Stark has left a pot of pasta boiling. There is a danger of it catching fire,” Sean said again, only his mouth was occupied doing other things so it was odd that he was talking.

“Mr. Hammond? I do apologize, but Mr. Stark is unavailable and Captain Rogers is not responding to my calls.”

TJ rolled over in bed and blinked at the wall. For a moment he didn’t know what happened, where Sean suddenly went now that he wasn’t curled around TJ. And then the room came into focus. It was a dream. A good dream, better than the ones he’d been having for a while. This wasn’t his apartment and he wasn’t lying in bed with Sean. Sean hasn’t spoken to him in months. It took TJ a moment to place the voice that pulled him from his dream because there was no one else in the room with him, but the softly insistent words were repeating. JARVIS, some distant part of his mind supplied. The voice was the same one that greeted him and Steve when they entered the elevator to Tony Stark’s penthouse apartment in New York. The penthouse apartment they came to because the people who kidnapped TJ were still after him and he was now a danger to his entire family simply by existing.

“Sir, the kitchen?” the voice said again.

TJ forced himself to sit up. He felt dazed and lethargic, like his limbs were made of cardboard that got left out in the rain. It was too much effort to tell the machine or the man or whatever was generating the voice that he was going to check on the pot, the voice would figure that out on its own. Besides, if Tony Stark could create a disembodied presence that floated around in his house chattering at people why hadn’t he been smart enough to create a way for that same disembodied voice to turn the stove off?

TJ trudged down the hallway he only vaguely remembered seeing earlier. He knew he’d done something stupid earlier, but couldn’t put his finger on exactly what that thing was. He remembered the man from the hospital—Sam—kneeling in front of him and he remembered the woman, Natasha, saying something to him, but when he thought back to her words now all he could hear in his head were incomprehensible sounds. It made him feel a little sick, trying to focus on any one thing for more than a moment, so he didn’t. TJ let himself wander past the closed bedroom door he was fairly certain belonged to Steve and he let himself trudge back into the living room. The bucket of soapy water and sponge sitting beside the couch was only slightly odd. Until he remembered vomiting on the floor in front of a room full of people, then it just became humiliating.

The thing was, he felt more or less alright now. Shaky and out of balance, but not like he was going to throw up or freak out and start punching people. Something about Tony Stark did not compute in his brain. On second he’d been exiting the elevator and the next TJ lost himself in confusing images of snow and ice, fast cars and the last lingering look in the eyes of a man that couldn’t possibly be Tony Stark as that man fell, down, down, down—

“To the left, Sir,” the voice in the ceiling said, guiding TJ to the kitchen.

It was grounding, pulling TJ out of whatever loop of inconsistencies his treacherous brain decided to show him. Because the man that wasn’t Tony had been falling in a car and the car was an older model that TJ didn’t recognize and he’d never seen a cliff face like the one that car fell over.

The kitchen was as big, bright, and aggressively modern as the rest of the apartment seemed to be. It also had the heavy starch smell of pasta left to boil far too long. The air was thick with moisture from the mostly evaporated pot. TJ glanced inside and cringed. Whatever the contents had been before, they were now nothing more than one gelatinous glob in the bottom of the pot that was slowly burning along the edges as more and more water bubbled away.

He fumbled around the stove for a few moments, unsure where the buttons and dials were in order to turn the whole thing off until the voice guided him to the appropriate knob.

“Thank you, Mr. Hammond. Would you like me to announce that you are awake?” JARVIS asked.

TJ shrugged. Immediately he realized he had no idea if the voice would be able to tell he’d made the gesture, and then hot on the heels of that uncertainty came a sweeping, overwhelming panic. You did not shrug when you were asked a direct question, you never shrugged when asked a question. You answered, immediately and thoroughly because you were not supposed to speak at any other moment. To ignore a question meant pain and the loss of the last ounce of freedom you had left—

But that made no sense at all. Even when he’d been kidnapped, TJ hadn’t been too terrified to speak. He knew HYDRA would hurt him if he didn’t answer a question but the near crippling fear squeezing at his heart didn’t seem right, didn’t seem warranted somehow. Why would he be more terrified after the fact than he had been during the kidnapping?

“Are you quite well, Mr. Hammond?” the voice asked.

TJ nodded. “I’m fine. I’m…I’m just going to go back to bed,” he muttered.

The voice said nothing, so TJ took it as a sign that no one was going to stop him from crawling back into bed and pretending that the rest of the world didn’t exist. Maybe if he was lucky he’d have more dreams of Sean, back before everything between them went to hell. If not a dream of Sean, then the nice one about playing cops and robbers as a child with another little blond haired boy would do. Both were calming, were grounding.

Where was everyone? He could understand Tony Stark not being around because TJ was pretty sure he’d tried to punch Tony Stark’s teeth in, but that wasn’t a reason for Sam and Natasha. It wasn’t a reason for the two of them to be absent. Obviously someone had been around recently if there was pasta trying to boil, but where had they gone?

What if someone broke in? What if HYDRA found them here? What if they had been kidnapped from Stark’s home the way TJ had been kidnapped from his own?

He crept faster down the hall until he came to a stop outside Steve’s bedroom door. The voice, JARVIS said he’d tried to contact Steve to turn off the stove, but Steve hadn’t answered. Did that mean someone had taken Steve and spirited him away too? What if the guy with a gun showed up and had Steve at gunpoint behind the door? What if everyone was being held at gunpoint because the people who kidnapped TJ were mad? What if they hadn’t finished with playing in his head and wanted him back?

TJ forced himself to slow his breathing down and open the door. He didn’t knock, because if there really was a man with a gun standing over Steve an element of surprise would be good, right? He could do something if the man with a gun didn’t know someone else was in the room.

But there was no one in the room other than Steve himself. He was lying on the bed, back to the door and curled tight on his side. This room was as different as night and day from the rest of the apartment. It looked soft and calm in relation to the bright and harsh modernism Tony Stark used to decorate everything else. It might have even been homey if not for how small Steve looked curled up on his bed. Like he used to when the weather changed and his asthma acted up and Dougie used to always get colds whenever the snow rolled in—

But Dougie almost never got colds as a kid. Dougie was always healthy.

TJ pressed the heel of his palm against his head and bit his lip against the pain beginning to throb behind his eyes. Whatever HYDRA did to him was fucking up his head, fucking up whoever he had been before they grabbed him out of bed and whisked him away to be tortured and played with like a toy. At this point, TJ wasn’t sure half the time whether what he was seeing was made up, an actual memory, or something else altogether. He was beginning to get a whispered idea, a crazy and improbable inkling that something specific was happening in his head but he wouldn’t let himself think about it now.

Steve hadn’t moved since TJ came into the room. Was that normal? Had he really been that quiet when he opened the door? Steve Rogers was Captain America, he should have woken up when TJ came into the room. What if, instead of shooting Steve, HYDRA stabbed him? What if he was over there on that bed bleeding out?

TJ crept across the room on bare feet, one slow step at a time. He couldn’t breathe, heart pounding behind his ribs so hard it hurt, everything hurt, it was so hard to breathe, like his lungs were squeezing shut. Steve wasn’t breathing either, but there was no blood on the bed and—

Steve rolled over and blinked up at TJ. “Are you alright?” His eyes were red rimmed and there were damp tracks on his face.

“You’re ok,” TJ gasped.

The relief was instantaneous. There was no way to tell how much of his fear was unfounded and how much wasn’t, not when his brain was acting so untrustworthy. But the thought that someone might have hurt Steve when TJ wasn’t there to stop them made darkness creep in along his mind.

He didn’t think, he just moved. TJ flung himself across the small space between himself and the bed. He collided with Steve, threw his arms around Steve’s shoulders and clung. Steve gasped, breath hitching in his lungs and that made the little thrill of fear ratchet up again. Someone had lungs that hitched and burnt and did not work when they needed them to but was that Steve or Dougie or someone TJ couldn’t even remember anymore?

“TJ? Are you ok? Did something happen?” Steve asked again, this time sounding tight and upset.

TJ shook his head. Arms, strong and warm and so similar to Sean’s, wrapped around TJ’s back but something about that was wrong too. Falling into Sean’s arms felt like coming home, but Steve didn’t feel like coming home so much as it felt like déjà vu. It felt like an automatic replay, like something he’d done hundreds of times before and the familiarity, the comfort, the calm, was making TJ dizzy. Something was creeping in on him and it kept pushing the world away. The harder it pushed the less of TJ there was.

“TJ?”

Steve’s voice was too much, pulled at something too deep and the howling wind was back in TJ’s ears and his arm felt numb and aching, and something kept saying it was important. TJ pulled back, had a moment to read the concern on Steve’s face—flushed and healthy—before he closed the distance between them.

Steve’s lips were soft and warm and better than any others had felt underneath his own. TJ closed his eyes and forced the shadows pulling at him to subside. This was all he needed, all he’d needed since they found him in that cell. Proof that he was still alive, still whole and sane, and proof that Steve wasn’t a figment of his fractured mind. He wasn’t making his rescuer up, he wasn’t imagining his personal hero coming to sweep him off his feet. Steve Rogers was real, was actually here, was actually curling his fingers tighter around TJ to pull him close.

Emboldened, TJ let his hands slip up into Steve’s hair, used the movement to tilt Steve’s head back just enough to deepen the kiss. He ran his tongue along Steve’s bottom lip. Another soft gasp escaped Steve as his lips parted. TJ deepened the kiss, explored the contours of Steve’s mouth and hummed at the heat that kindled in his belly. The arms around him pulled tight, pressed TJ against his broad chest, and then the embrace loosened.

Steve pulled back, breaking the kiss.

TJ opened his eyes as the warmth in his belly began to die.

Steve looked like he was going to cry. Tears clung to the corners of his eyes, which were focused anywhere but on TJ. He bit his lip and took a deep, shuttering breath. His arms tensed, but the touch of his hands on TJ did not turn painful. If anything, it softened and that made it worse. Even at the best of times, even when they weren’t so wrapped up in self loathing or so high off the thrill of sleeping with the former president’s son, no one was ever gentle with TJ. Even Sean lost his soft touch as their time together went on.

And Steve was the one that looked like TJ’s touch hurt. It hadn’t occurred to him that the embrace might be too tight, but he should have considering how he’d hurt Mom and Dougie at the hospital. But the fingers he had tangled in Steve’s hair weren’t pulling or tugging or doing anything that should be painful…So, maybe it was because of TJ’s kiss.

“I-I’m sorry,” he said, removing his hands from Steve’s hair. “I shouldn’t have just thrown myself at you.”

Steve shook his head. “It’s alright. I just…I can’t…”

He looked up, eyes finally catching on TJ’s and they were so bright with tears that would not fall—

The door burst open and bounced off the wall. TJ jumped and pitched over. Steve’s grip tightened just enough to keep TJ from sliding off his lap. Tony Stark stood in the doorway. He glanced at them both sitting there on Steve’s bed, TJ sprawled atop his lap, both their lips rosy from the kiss, and shook his head.

“Time for hanky-panky latter. Capsicle, Kid, we gotta talk to you both. It’s important,” Tony said. TJ didn’t know him well enough to be able to tell if there was something off about the way he spoke. Would Tony Stark think less of TJ for kissing Steve? Or would he think less of Captain America for being kissed by another man?

TJ crept off of Steve’s lap like a child waiting to be punished. He remembered Arnold Roth getting beaten half to death on the docks after everyone went home from work because someone saw him kissing a guy in Dumbo—but that was impossible as well because TJ didn’t know an Arnold Roth and he’d never been to Dumbo in Brooklyn. But Tony didn’t seem disgusted or upset, and TJ thought maybe he’d been to a party where Tony was high or drunk and kissing anyone who was interested, but TJ wasn’t sure if that was real or not either.

Steve led the way out of the bedroom. It did not escape TJ’s notice that he placed himself between TJ and Tony as they walked. Together they made their way back to the living room. Sam and Natasha were there as well. Sam had his hands on his hips and was frowning at the carpet while Natasha paced back and forth, one finger tapping against her bottom lip. Both watched the new arrivals to the room. Natasha’s face was perfectly blank. Her weight was distributed evenly on both feet and her attention locked on TJ as he entered. Sam was easier to get a read on. His lips pressed together and his brows knighted closer, radiating discomfort.

Whatever was going to, no one was happy about it.

“You might want to take a seat,” Sam said. Even his voice sounded bracing.

TJ glanced at Steve, trying to judge how to react to this situation. Steve frowned and moved around the couch to perch on the edge of the seat cushion. TJ hesitated for a moment longer before he sat as well. He scooted closer to Steve, nervous and needing the closeness to assure himself that this was still alright, these people were still friends of Steve’s which meant they were still trustworthy. None of them were going to rip off a mask Scooby Doo style to reveal that they were actually HYDRA all along.

An arm pressed lightly into TJ’s side and did not move. He glanced down to see Steve shifting closer as well, just the smallest bit, so that the point of contact was there but unobtrusive. He wasn’t going to make a big deal out of how badly TJ needed something to keep his head in the here and now. How good did a person have to be, to willingly reach out and offer comfort to someone who crept into his room unannounced and then tried to stick their tongue down his throat? Shame burnt TJ’s cheeks.

“TJ, we have to ask you a few questions,” Sam began.

Steve frowned. “I thought you needed to tell us something?”

Sam glanced at him, radiating so much sympathy it made TJ’s stomach clench. What could be bad enough to make him look like that before Steve even knew what the problem was?

“We will, but we need intel before we get to that point,” Natasha said. She stepped closer to the couch and pointedly did not look at Tony when he tried to get her attention.

“Did your kidnappers say anything or do anything to indicate why you were taken?” she asked, eyes boring into TJ. It wasn’t exactly a mean look, but it wasn’t a friendly one either.

He shook his head automatically, even as he racked his brain. Had they said anything? Not that he could think of, and he’d asked in the beginning. The best he could remember was Pierce—the man had been at Christmas parties his parent hosted—insisting he wanted TJ “wiped and ready” but he never said what he wanted him ready for…had he?

“I-I don’t think so?” TJ muttered. He glanced at Steve, who nodded encouragingly even though he looked like he was afraid to hear whatever TJ had to say on the subject. “There was this guy—Pierce, I don’t remember his first name. A-something. Pierce used to come to my parents’ Christmas parties. He was there. He…he seemed to be the one calling the shots.”

A look passed between Natasha and Steve, breaking like a wave against the shore of their faces so that little bits of recognition splashed off of them and onto Tony and Sam as well.

“Alexander Pierce was the director of SHIELD and the head of HYDRA. He and his men infiltrated SHIELD. We exposed them. That’s why we came to the building where they were holding you. We were there to try and capture any remaining HYDRA operatives,” Steve said. His arm shifted to press more fully against TJ’s side.

“Did Pierce ever say anything that might indicate why you, specifically, were taken? Did anyone every give any indication why you were there?” Natasha pressed.

TJ licked his lips, eyes darting around the room. It was happening again, he could feel it in his head, the way him memories were getting all mixed up. He remembered a short, balding man with glasses leaning over the cold metal table he was strapped to saying, “this one looks less sickly than the last. Perhaps he will survive the experiment,” and he remembered his old pediatrician insisting, “it’s not cloning, not really,” but both memories were getting mixed up and bleeding into another where someone—the short man or the pediatrician, he couldn’t tell anymore, their faces were too much the same now—insisted that he be “prepped and ready for training.”

“They were testing things. They broke my arm to see how fast it would heal, took bone marrow from my hip to try and get a sample of something. It was all…all trying to see how much I could take before I broke, I guess.” TJ had no shoes on. His toes were the least interesting things he’d ever seen but he refused to look up and make eye contact with any of these people, not even Steve. Any reaction they gave was likely to make the jumbled, confusing mix of images in his head worse.

“Do you know why they were testing that?” Sam asked, and his voice was soft and earnest and kind. It made TJ want to sink into the slightly damp couch and never emerge again.

“I don’t know. They gave me a lot of drugs—injected me with something. Put me in… It was a chair, I think. It did something to my head. They said it ‘wiped’ me but I guess it wasn’t working right.”

“How do you know it wasn’t working right?” Tony asked from somewhere behind his left shoulder.

“Because I kept remembering who I was after a few hours. And I keep remembering other stuff, stuff that can’t be right.”

A long moment of silence filled the room. Steve’s arm was no longer pressing into his side. At some point he’d shifted on the couch so that he could place his hand on TJ’s shoulder. It was nice, nicer than TJ deserved after what he’d done.

“Does the name Winter Solder mean anything to you?” Natasha asked into the silence.

“N—“ TJ began, but his head was pounding now, throbbing so hard he thought his brain might leak right out his ears because of the pressure in his skull. His skull was red and burnt and lacking all skin like a skeleton with eyes and it formed words that TJ didn’t understand because they were all in English too fractured by a German accent for him to interpret. And there was a man—blond haired and blue eyes with a strong jaw and an easy smile that kept insisting TJ was helping to save the world, but there was so much red all over TJ’s hands he didn’t know what to think anymore because he couldn’t remember how to think anymore—

“TJ, TJ, calm down. Breath with me. In and out. In and out,” Sam said. It took TJ a moment to focus. Once he did he found himself staring into Sam’s calm eyes as he knelt in front of the couch. TJ wanted to make a joke about it, about how similar it was to what had happened earlier, but he couldn’t think of anything to say because the only words in his head were from the blond man whispering, “You’re a ghost.”

“Ghost,” TJ said at last.

“What?” asked Steve. It was only now that he’d spoken that TJ realized Steve was rubbing his arms, up and down, up and down, because TJ was shivering uncontrollably.

“Maybe we should hold off—“Tony began, but Natasha shot him a hard look.

“We need to know if he remembers. It’s the difference between the family being in danger or the family being the danger,” she said. “Elaine is the only one I can vouch for and I’m not sending Clint in blind.”

“My family? Is something wrong? Did something happen to them?” TJ asked. He felt like he was stuck under sand, so much sand, trying to swim back to the surface but it wasn’t working. There was too much in his head right now, too many thoughts all trying to claim center stage but none of them belonged there except all of them belonged there.

“We think someone close to you is in league with HYDRA—“ Natasha began, and suddenly TJ could remember clear as day the pretty faced girl and the blond who’d wanted to sleep with him since he was a kid in the White House.

“There were people there, at the place where they were keeping me. People I used to date, or met at a party. A lot of them. I recognized my old doctor. They were all there. I thought I was hallucinating it.”

Natasha glanced up and Sam and Tony, holding them both in her silence gaze. She did not look at Steve, despite how clearly he was trying to get her attention, or anyone’s attention. Whatever she needed to see before unveiling why this interrogation had to happen she’d found. With one last deep breath to ground herself, she focused back on TJ and Steve on the couch.  
“TJ, the Winter Solder is a codename for a special ops agent HYDRA trained back at the end of WWII and into the Cold War. The Winter Solder is the perfect assassin, the perfect agent, because he’s supposed to be a ghost. Unstoppable, deadly,” she said. “They were trying to recreate the serum that Steve was given. It only worked once.”  
This sounded like some kind of warped addition to his history textbooks. He knew that HYDRA had wanted to make a super soldier of their own, anyone who’d ever taken eighth-grade history knew that. But there was no evidence that HYDRA had succeeded, was there? That would be the kind of thing they threw into those History Chanel WWII Captain American specials they aired every year.

“Why is it important enough to bring up now?” Steve asked. His hands were still on TJ and they were so warm when TJ was always so cold. He had dreams in the cell though, after the first time they put him in the chair and messed with his brain, that he was on a bridge between two catwalks that towered over Hell. It had to be Hell, because underneath the narrow metal bridge was nothing but flames and he knew he had seen the man with the red skull for a face here first, so he had to be the devil.

“We’re still going over the information in the file, but it seems HYDRA wanted to activate TJ as the next Winter Solder. They kidnapped you with the intent of turning you into a weapon for them,” Natasha said, and still her face betrayed no reaction to this information.

Steve stopped rubbing TJ’s arms. He looked frozen, sitting there on the couch.

“We’re trying to figure out which of your family members we gotta whisk away to safety,” Tony said gently. 

“Which of my—? All of them,” TJ said. Panic began to fill him, leaking into his lungs so that he began to drown. If HYDRA wanted him to be some crazy assassin monster they weren’t going to just let him run away. They would go after Dougie and Anne, Grandma, Mom, Dad. None of them were safe.

“That makes no sense,” Steve said, still frozen in his spot on the couch. “This isn’t WWII anymore. You can’t just draft someone and expect them to be able to fight. The sort of skill you’re talking about takes years of practice. Even the serum can’t make up for that. I’m only half as good a fighter as I am now because I’ve been trained.”

Natasha met Steve’s eyes. Sam did too, but neither of them said anything. It was Tony who stepped around the couch and spoke.

“We know. They knew that too. They’ve been training TJ in secret for years.”

“No, they haven’t,” TJ snapped. “Someone would have noticed. I would have noticed, or my mother or father—“

“Your father is in on it with them,” Tony said bluntly.

TJ blinked. He’d heard that wrong. He must have. “What?”

“Bud Hammond is HYDRA. What we’re trying to figure out now is who else might be, because I’d rather not give crazy, zealot psychopaths access to my house,” Tony continued.

“My father is not HYDRA,” TJ snapped. It was impossible. Dad would never let someone kidnap his child. He’d never let anyone hurt TJ.

Natasha shook her head. “He is. We have documentation to prove it.

TJ stood up. He had to get out of here, had to call Mom, call Dad. Someone, anyone. He just needed to know his family was alright and if these people wanted to pretend like his father was some kind of monster and not help he’d just have to find some other way to keep them safe.

“TJ, wait,” Steve said. He reached out and caught TJ’s wrist. The grip wasn’t tight, he could shrug the hold off and keep going, but he didn’t.

“You can’t just say something like that and not explain. How do you know Bud Hammond is HYDRA? Is Mrs. Barrish safe? Or TJ’s brother and his wife? TJ’s grandmother?”

“The wife and grandmother are together at Elaine Barrish’s home. Elaine and Douglas are on their way to meet up with them. Elaine has been made aware of the situation and Clint is keeping an eye on the wife and grandmother until we determine whether to bring them in or not.”

“Of course you should bring them in,” TJ snapped, rounding on the room and glaring at Natasha. She was talking about his family like they meant nothing. “They aren’t HYDRA. If someone hurts them because of me—“

“That’s why we have someone watching the house. Don’t freak out. We’re pretty ok at saving people. We’ll keep them safe,” Tony said. He was smiling, like he was trying to make a joke or something but all TJ could see was the car and the face of the man who looked so much like Tony Stark even though he wasn’t. The man hadn’t been smiling when he and his car fell down, down, down.

“Did your father’s car crash over a cliff?” he asked because the words pulled themselves from him before TJ could stop them.

Tony blinked, taken aback. “Yeah? What—“

“There’s something wrong with my head. I keep seeing things that I know I didn’t see,” TJ said and it came out half a sob. It hurt. His head hurt. It was going to burst and all he wanted was his mother and Dougie. He wanted to know Anne and Grandma and Dad were safe. He couldn’t get enough air into his lungs.

“Seeing things you shouldn’t see. Like dear old dad going over the cliff,” Tony muttered, but he sounded so far way it was hard to be sure it was really him speaking.

“I think they tried to wake up latent memories,” Natasha said from worlds away. “That’s how they were planning on training him—by using the skills he already had in his head and just enforcing them with muscle memory.”

“But why would they assume he had any training at all to draw on,” Steve muttered. He was close to TJ, but even his voice was filtered through the cotton balls filling TJ’s mind.

“Steve—“ Sam. That was Sam talking. There was something wrong with his voice.

TJ pressed both hands against his skull and sobbed. Too much, there was just too much inside and he couldn’t take it anymore. Something had to give and it felt like the weakest link was bone and brain matter. They might as well give him back to HYDRA, they broke him too much for TJ to be a person again.

 

“You’re going to hurt yourself, stop,” Steve said as he gently pulled TJ’s hands away from his head.

But it wasn’t Steve standing in front of him anymore. Or, it wasn’t the right Steve. The Steve he was looking at was shorter than TJ and so thin, so pale. He had on suspenders and was smiling and it was nice. For a moment everything in his head slowed, quieted, let TJ take a deep breath and marvel at how nice it was to not be on the table anymore. He never thought Steve was going to come and rescue him, but if anyone could do the impossible it was Steve.

“I thought you were taller,” he said. He tilted his head to the side and smiled somewhat self-deprecatingly. Steve was going to be so disappointed in him. “I guess I did take all the stupid with me, because I got captured. The whole 107th did. Pretty stupid.”

 

Steve blinked. He wasn’t smiling. That was bad. When they didn’t smile it meant he’d done something wrong and they were going to punish him. He’d learned over the years to expect pain; they said it brought order.

“Where do you think you are right now?” Steve asked, slowly, carefully. His fingers rubbed soft circles into his skin. “TJ?”

He found. Steve was big again. Bigger than TJ was. He wished Steve would stop doing that and just pick a size. Who even authorized sending someone with so many ailments to the front lines? “Did you lie on you draft papers again? Tell ‘em you were from Yonkers this time?”

Steve recoiled like he’d been hit. He spun around to look at…what was her name again? Natasha? Natasha. She was frowning and chewing on her bottom lip and …and they were talking about something a second ago. It was important. It had to do with someone important

“Steve, when Elaine gets here we’ll explain in more detail. We just needed to know what he remembered,” she said.

It didn’t seem like enough of an answer for Steve. “How did he know what Bucky said to me when I found him in the POW camp? Is that in a history book somewhere? Could HYDRA have made him think that?”

“Steve—“ Sam began.

His family. That was what they were talking about. His family. And he’d never been in a POW camp so, TJ didn’t know what Steve was talking about.

“It’s bleed through. They tried to wake up the Winter Soldier but instead they woke up everyone,” Tony muttered. He frowned at TJ, eyes narrowed and calculating. The look made him uneasy and without thinking about it TJ took another step closer to Steve.

“Woke everyone up?” he asked. “What do you mean? What’s going on with my family?”

“TJ?” Steve said it like he thought he was going to get an answer other than yes.

Across the room Natasha pulled a phone from her pocket and frowned deeply. “Suit up,” she said, looking up from the device to lock eyes with Tony. “Elaine Barrish’s house was just attacked. We’re up for an extraction.”

“What? What happened? Is my family safe?” TJ demanded.

Natasha smiled. It wasn’t the nicest of smiles, but it was honest. “Hawkeye will keep them safe. We know which of them are HYDRA now. They’ll be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited chapter, hopefully without the errors now! Thank you to everyone who pointed them out for me. And thank you to Annaparma for the edits.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to the amazing Annaparma. You all should have seen this hot mess before the edits;)

“Why can’t you tell me where TJ is?” Douglas demanded for what must have been the hundredth time.

Mom climbed out of the back of the car silently. She’d been tense and distant the whole ride back from the prison. Whoever she’d spoken to on the phone had told her something she hadn’t wanted to hear. Douglas knew his mother well enough to realize this wasn’t something to do with work. If she’d gotten a call about Fred Collier and whatever new bill he was fast tracking through Congress she would have told him. She wasn’t sharing anything at all about the phone call, which meant it had to do with TJ.

There was a lot going on with TJ that no one seemed to want to tell Douglas. Like the fact that he wasn’t in his hospital room in DC, hadn’t been for about a day, but they were still paying for the private space. Waiting for the media to get wind of where the lost Hammond brother was being kept maybe. Douglas could get behind anything that kept reporters away from TJ for as long as possible, but it didn’t seem like the sort of thing that Mom had concocted on her own. She wouldn’t have wanted TJ moved from the hospital, not with the way he’d looked when they were there.

It made a cold sweat break out all along Douglas’s back every time he thought about it. His brother, taken away in the dead of night for extremist psychopaths to do god knew what with. He’s seen TJ high out of his mind, tripping on more drugs than Douglas had a name for, and even at the worst of times, when he’d held his brother close and guided him through chemical-fuelled hallucinations, TJ hadn’t looked as haunted as he had in that hospital bed. No one would tell Douglas what happened—TJ might not remember and Douglass wasn’t going to push him and pry when everything was still so raw—but Mom knew. Or had enough of an idea that she could make an educated guess. Dad knew too, but neither of them was sharing.

Douglas only ever resented his parents when it came to TJ. There was some disconnect, some intrinsically faulty plan for how to interact with his brother that the two of them ascribed to, and it always left TJ the worse for wear. Mom tried, she tried so hard, especially when they were little and the stress and chaos of congressional and then presidential campaigns kept Dad distant and distracted. She loved TJ and most of the time TJ knew and recognized that, but she let him lose himself in the weird fantasies that distracted him for far too long. It happened a few times when they were younger, where TJ just seemed to check out mentally. Douglas remembered a whole year when he and TJ were ten where TJ refused to wear anything but black and barely spoke to anyone. He’d flinched at loud noises and sudden movement. He responded to questions in mumbles and without eye contact. Douglas hated that year so much—TJ never smiled, always flinched when Douglas went in for a hug, and would wake up in the middle of the night crying so much that Douglas took to creeping out of his room and into TJ’s as soon at the lights in the hallway went off. Mom said TJ was working through something, reaching puberty and trying to find himself. Douglas knew she was only saying that because Dad kept saying it. Dad only said it because Dr. Anderson was telling him that.

Well, Dr. Anderson killed himself out of guilt in a high security prison cell because he was part of HYDRA, so his advice was just as suspect now as it had seemed them. Or more so, really. It hadn’t felt like TJ was working through anything that year, it felt like TJ was gone and someone else was walking around in his body. Douglas pleaded with both his parents that year for them to do something, to make TJ go outside in something other than black, to make him respond to questions with answers other than “fine” when anyone asked how he was doing, but they didn’t. It took TJ falling out of the hayloft because he was trying to climb the rafters for anyone to take Douglas’s concerns seriously. He was sure TJ broke his arm and at least an ankle, but when Dad brought him back from Dr. Anderson there were nothing but bruises.

TJ started to smile again after the fall, but Douglas knew. From that point onward he understood—his parents loved TJ but they couldn’t see when he needed help, not the way Douglas could.

Which was why the secrecy surrounding where TJ actually was made Douglas want to smash his cell phone onto the ground in a fit of rage. Mom was better, had been picking up the cues and signals for when TJ was in trouble more often after Dad won the presidency, but she was never going to be as good at it as Douglas. It was a twin thing, he figured, something mapped into their genetics from before they were even born.

The fact that Anne had to text him in secret to tell him that Steve Rogers and his associates had spirited TJ away did not bode well. She insisted Grandma knew about it and thought things were fine, but that didn’t mean much. Grandma was a no-nonsense kind of person, a straight shooter, so if she was telling Anne not to let Douglas know TJ wasn’t in the hospital, if she was the one insisting on subterfuge, something was seriously wrong.

He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Dad about it yet, but he had been able to shoot off a quick text letting him know what Anne told him. No word on if Dad had been able to figure out where Steve Rogers took TJ yet, but Dad would figure it out.

“Why do you feel the need to be so secretive about this?” he continued, following Mom up the steps to the front door. Phillip pushed the door open wide and waited for both Mom and Douglas to enter the building first before slipping in after them and closing the door.

Mom sighed and stopped walking. She glanced up the hall—deserted except for the three of them, Anne and Grandma most likely in the living room and unable to hear them—before turning back to lock eye on Phillip.

“I need to speak to Douglas in private for a moment,” she said, to which Phillip nodded and politely excused himself to disappear deeper into the house.

That was progress at least. There was very little Mom didn’t trust Phillip enough to say in front of him so if she was sending him out of earshot maybe she was ready to talk about TJ. Maybe she would share what that HYDRA guy had to say about why a terrorist organization wanted to kidnap his brother.

“Is it sharing time, finally?” he asked, and there was a note of sarcasm in his voice that he hadn’t intended. Douglas worked very hard to not be anything but earnest when working with his mother. There were enough people around her, day in and day out, that spoke in half-truths and lies, the least he could do was mean what he said.

“I don’t know. Can I trust you? Can TJ?”

For a moment Douglas thought she was joking. It was such an absurd question to even ask, there was no way she could mean it. But the look on Mom’s face was anything but joking. She looked like she was about to go before Congress and testify, like she was about to tell Douglas someone had died and he felt his throat begin to tighten in fear.

“What kind of a question is that?” he demanded, because as much as it frightened him, it angered him as well. Of everyone in the family, Douglas was the one who was always on TJ’s side, always there for Mom when she needed someone to lean on. Hell, his was going to let his whole wedding be a fundraising event for Mom’s campaign, how dare she question his loyalties?

“It’s a serious one, Douglas,” she countered. Mom stepped closer. Her eyes were bright and searching but her face was hard, closed off. “Someone close to this family has been giving people information about TJ. Delicate, dangerous information. Information that could get him hurt again.”

What?

Someone did what? They…they told people about TJ, about how lost and scared and hurt he’d been in the hospital bed? That was terrible and humiliating and crossed so many boundaries Douglas didn’t even know where to begin directing his outrage. The sad part was that the violation of privacy hardly came as a surprise. But how as that going to be dangerous for TJ? Unless…Unless she was afraid he’d do what he did last Christmas. Unless he tried to hurt himself again.

“Who did they tell?” Douglas demanded, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. He would call Susan Berg. She was a reporter with integrity, with principals, if she could do anything at all to waylay the story she would. “I can try and get a gag order put out, call in the lawyers. I’m not going to let anyone put TJ through the media nightmare he dealt with last time something—"

Mom placed a gentle hand on his arm and guided it back down. Some of the hard edges along her expression were smoothing out, a tension Douglas couldn’t place bleeding out of the stiff way she held her shoulders.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “I meant that someone told Fred Collier about the strength. How TJ came back changed. He wants to use TJ as an example, the face to parade around in front of the country to support his new bill.”

“The one he’s trying to fast track through Congress?” But what did TJ have to do with the bill? What did strength have to do with anything? And how was that information going to hurt TJ?

Mom considered him closely for a long moment. He could see her weighing her options, could actually track calculations spinning along behind her eyes. So many people had been on the receiving side of that look, so many people had stood in front of Elaine Barrish and felt themselves weighed and measured only to be found wanting, but this was the first time Douglas had ever had that look directed at himself. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

“HYDRA tried to do something to TJ, I don’t know what. Captain Rogers and his team interrupted whatever HYDRA was attempting, but they don’t think TJ’s safe yet. Someone he knows, someone we all know, helped HYDRA get their hands on your brother. They helped HYDRA hurt him. They’re trying to help HYDRA get him back.”

“You thought it was me,” Douglas realized all at once. The room spun. He felt short of breath. Dazed. Sick. She’d thought it was him. Thought he’d done it. That he’d betrayed his brother. Let him get violated and abused. Left him scared and hurt and oh god, what if TJ thought that too? No, oh no. No, no, no.

“Calm down,” Mom said. She stepped closer still and pulled Douglas into a tight embrace. He could feel the slight tremor that ran through her body. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged him like this, like she was trying to keep the nightmares away and it was only going to work as long as she held on.

“I never thought it was you, but it’s safer for you to know as little as possible. I love you, your brother loves you. Take a deep breath,” she said.

Douglas allowed himself to hug back. He allowed himself one long moment where he closed his eyes and imagined none of the last month ever happened. TJ never overdosed, never got kidnapped, the president never died, giant helicarriers never sunk into the Potomac and no one had ever heard of SHIELD or HYDRA because they were all make-believe. He needed one moment to think that the world made sense and wasn’t full of alien invasions, green monsters, or flying metal suits that caused international incidents.

And then the moment was over and Douglas pulled away. “Is TJ safe, wherever he is?”

Mom nodded. On this point she looked absolutely confident.

“Has anyone told Dad?”

A dark, angry something passed across Mom’s face. She turned and began walking again before Douglas got a chance to actually dissect what he’d just seen. The best he could do was guess that she’d tried to broach the conversation with Dad and he’d been his normal, pigheaded self. Douglas loved his father, but his father could be an absolute idiot sometimes.

It wasn’t the time or the place to push the issue. If Dad actually was being stubborn about this somehow—maybe he was demanding to know where TJ was the same way Douglas had been a second ago—then Douglas would deal with it. Damage control between the members of his family was his specialty. As soon as Mom was somewhere out of earshot he’d give Dad a call and talk some sense into him.

Phillip had already set himself up across from the window in the living room in such a way that he would be able to watch the whole room and some of the porch without having to move. Grandma was seated on the bench in front of the piano and Anne on the couch. Both were silent, the tension in the room palpable. They turned as one to watch Mom and Douglas walk into the room. Anne perked up, eyes darting between Mom and Douglas. There was a little crinkled between her brows, a sure sign that she had something she wanted to tell him but would wait until they were alone.

Grandma walked her fingers across the keys of the piano and said, “Ah, so, finally home? How was the prison? Have fun at the penitentiary?”

Mom rolled her eyes and pressed the fingers of her right hand against her forehead. She looked, at that moment, like the last month had finally caught up with her.  
In the month that TJ was missing Douglas didn’t sleep. The first few days he drove around the city in endless circles, searching all of TJ’s old haunts. Anne remembered the password to TJ’s phone—he’d given it to her the night he came home from the hospital after the overdose—and pulled all off his contacts from his backup program off the Internet. She called everyone. Every last person on TJ’s contact list, searching for information. No one knew anything. It was the worst three weeks of his life, and it still didn’t compare to what TJ went through.

Without Anne he would have gone crazy. Who did Mom have to lean on? Who had she come home to, night after night, while she waited for word on TJ? Who sat up at night with her and insisted that TJ wasn’t dead somewhere, that they weren’t too late to save him?

“No. Kev—the doctor was dead when we got there,” Mom said. Kevin Anderson used to be on speed dial when Douglas and TJ were young. Kevin Anderson helped HYDRA hurt TJ. Kevin Anderson deserved everything that came to him.

“He died?” Anne asked quietly from her place on the couch. She stood up and hurried to Douglas and for half a second everything went calm and still. It was the sort of thing that happened every time she was around, the sort of calm that Douglas could find only when he had Anne around. More than once Douglas thought if TJ had this, had someone like Anne in his life, things would be better. But every single person—man or woman—that circled around him did nothing but drag TJ deeper and deeper into trouble.

Maybe Steve Rogers would be good for him…

And that was the last thing Douglas should be thinking about right now.

“Are you alright?” Anne asked, voice low so that only Douglas could hear her. She curled her fingers around Douglas’s arms.

“Did the other one, the one that’s still alive, tell you anything?” Grandma asked, and it was the most serious Douglas had ever heard her sound.

“He said—“

The window shattered. Phillip gasped. Red bloomed across his chest as he looked down in shock and slid slowly sideways to crumple onto the ground.

There was a whole in the wall where Phillip was standing.

“…what—“ Douglas began at the same moment Anne screamed and pulled him down onto the floor.

The light fixture above their heads exploded, dropping the room into near darkness.

“Get down!” Mom shouted, diving for Grandma to pull her away from the wide window. The whistling of bullets filled the room as Douglas flung himself on top of Anne. Wood from the table splintered off and caught in his hair. Someone was shooting at them. They were being shot at. Mom and Grandma—

“Hands up! Hands up!” Someone smashed in the side door—no one ever used that door—and people in combat gear began to rush into the room. They shot Phillip. Phillip was bleeding, he was dead, they shot him, and Mom and Grandma—

Douglas rolled away from Anne, lifted his head to try and find Mom. Where was she? A hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and something cold and smooth pressed into the back of his head. The whole world was muted, he couldn’t breathe, they were pulling him away from Anne, and Grandma was screeching and there were men pulling Mom away from her—

Something whizzed past his ear and embedded itself in the body behind him. Douglas heard a soft “ugg” that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He turned, everything going so slow, and there was an arrow embedded in the throat of the man who’d been pulling Douglas away—

A body crashed through the window in a shower of glass and purple. A man rolled up onto his knees, a bow and arrow pulled tight in his hands and then he was moving. Douglas could see in the flickering light from the outside porch each time the man drew his arms back and released another arrow. One by one the men in the room dropped away from Mom, staggered backward away from Grandma. One reached for Anne but before his hands could touch her another sharp hiss of air splitting sounded and the man screamed as his hand was impaled on the hard wood floor.  
“Hawkeye calling in. Widow, we need an extraction,” the man with the bow and arrows said.

He had a bow and arrows.

There were dead men in the living room.

Douglas curled over and pressed his face to the floor before he passed out. Great, gasping gulps of air stung his lungs but it wasn’t enough, he couldn’t breathe, holy shit, they were just attacked, someone tried to kill them, Phillip was dead and TJ wasn’t here, thank every last ounce of insight Mom ever had, because TJ wasn’t here.

“Who the hell are you?” Grandma demanded. She clung to Mom and Douglas couldn’t tell if she was holding Mom up or if Mom was supporting her.

The man stood fully and rubbed the back of his head. He looked oddly sheepish for someone who just dove through a window and killed a bunch of Kevlar-clad intruders with nothing but pointy sticks.

“Hawkeye. I’m with Captain America. Keeping an eye on things, stuff, people,” the man, Hawkeye, said.

What kind of a name was Hawkeye?

“Natasha said nothing about you,” Mom said, sharp and suspicions.

Hawkeye shrugged. He twirled one of his arrows between his fingers in a way that made it look like an extension of his body more than anything else. He slipped around the couch and crouched back down beside the lone living intruder.

“What the hell is going on here?” Douglas demanded. “Mom, who’s Natasha? What’s going on?”

“’Bout to find that out,” Hawkeye said simply. He pressed the tip of his finger against the shaft of the arrow impaled in the man’s hand. He smiled full of teeth “Care to share what you were doing here?”

The man whimpered as the arrow shifted. Douglas felt his stomach roll.

“Not even a hint? Were you here for Mrs. Barrish? Who sent you?” Hawkeye asked, and this time he pushed the arrow hard to the left.

The man hissed in pain. “I’ll tell you nothing. Hail HYDRA,” the man said. He did something odd with his mouth, shifted his jaw in a way that made something crunch. Did he just dislocate his own jaw?  
“No!” Hawkeye said. He lunged for the man’s mouth, pulling at his jaw. He shoved his fingers into the man’s mouth, fishing for something. Foam began to dribble out from between the man’s lips and Hawkeye’s fingers. The intruder began to convulse.

With a groan of disgust, Hawkeye pulled his fingers away from he man’s mouth. The intruder dropped to the floor, eyes rolling back in his head and foam issuing from his mouth as he twitched and shuddered.

“Did he just…die?” Anne asked, voice high and tight.

“Aw, cyanide,” Hawkeye muttered, wiping his fingers clean on his uniform vest.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to Annaparma for editing this chapter. You should guess what it looked like before the edits! (Hint: not as good)
> 
> Sorry for the wait! Also, if you watch Agents of Shield, there is a reference to it in here...

Steve was going crazy. That was all there was to it, the only actual explanation. There was no way that he was hearing any of this right, no way he was understanding Tony or Natasha or TJ right. Because if he was hearing them right that meant that HYDRA had gone after TJ long before Steve was even out of the ice. But that couldn’t be quite right either, because TJ kept saying things that he shouldn’t know about, things that only Bucky could have known. He’d told Bucky that Yonkers was going to be the next location he put down on his registration forms.

And now TJ was refusing to speak to him. Currently, TJ was sitting on the couch in the living room, eyes fixed unwaveringly on the television so that he could block out Steve’s repeated attempts to gain his attention. Tony and Natasha wasted no time between dropping the shocking revelation that Bud Hammond was, in fact, a member of HYDRA and then promptly disappearing to save the remaining, non-HYDRA affiliated members of TJ’s family. The look of utter confusion, anger, and—above all—disappointment on TJ’s face actually hurt. And then the look was replaced almost immediately with so much anger that seeing it felt to Steve like a punched in the gut.

It’d been about forty minutes and TJ still hadn’t spoken to him. He wasn’t even the one to turn on the TV, JARVIS had done that all on his own. It was the angry look still on TJ’s face more than anything else that was making Steve’s head spin. It wasn’t like Bucky had never been angry with him in the past, because he had. It was just, Bucky’s anger was a slow and steady simmer in relation to Steve’s fast boil. To see anger flash across TJ’s face, a face so like Bucky’s, after hearing TJ say things so like Bucky would have said…Bucky would never have ignored him if something prompted that much and that quick a reaction. It should have been a reminder that TJ and Bucky were two different people, but it was.

 

Steve wasn’t sure if he wanted to vomit or cry or scream. He was going to split apart at the seams because he couldn’t take much more of this. It didn’t matter how much he told himself that TJ and Bucky were different people, the two seemed to be bleeding into each other every time TJ opened his mouth. HYDRA had wanted to turn Bucky into their perfect killing machine. HYDRA wanted to turn TJ into their perfect killing machine as well. Bucky looked like TJ, TJ looked like Bucky. So far the only thing that was letting Steve keep the two apart in his own head was the fact that he didn’t know what it would have felt like to have Bucky’s tongue in his mouth.

Oh god, TJ kissed him. TJ kissed him and Steve’s reaction was to break down into tears. Because he was the worst emotional support system anyone ever had. Bucky would have laughed at him, but Bucky couldn’t laugh at him because Bucky was dead and that was Steve’s fault as well.

“You need to take a deep breath.”

Steve blinked, startled out of his fixed focus down the hall. He could hear the TV and could just see the edge of TJ’s shoulder around the bend in the hallway. Sam had a pot in his hands and was busy scraping the burnt remnants of pasta out of it. He arched one skeptical eyebrow at Steve as he scraped.

Steve blushed and ducked his head. “Sorry. I’m…I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. You just need to breathe. I’m worried about you,” Sam replied.

 

And something warm bloomed in Steve’s chest. What did he do to deserve a friend like Sam? Or Natasha? Or even Tony? What had he ever done to deserve Bucky? Why did these amazing people bother to keep him around when all he ever did was pick fights he couldn’t finish on his own and drag them down with him?

“He just…Sam, I think I’m going nuts.” And once he said the words it was like the rest wouldn’t stay inside. He forced himself to look away from TJ and the hallway to focus instead on Sam. He leaned closer, one hand resting on the white marble countertop. “It’s just that he keeps saying things he shouldn’t know about, like how I was going to put Yonkers on my next registration form. Or what Bucky said to me when I found him in the POW camp. Sam—Sam, every time I look at him I keep seeing Bucky.”

Sam glanced down at the pot and spatula in his hands and frowned. It was clear that he knew something he wasn’t saying and Steve couldn’t figure out why.“Am I crazy?”

Sam set the pot down on the countertop and sighed. “No. No. You’re not crazy. I don’t actually know what’s going on here, but you’re not crazy.” He said it earnestly, eyes locked on Steve’s. “Tony didn’t even really understand what was in all that data—not what they were doing to him, and that’s the part that’s got you seeing ghosts.”

“What his father did to him,” Steve said. It tasted like ash on his tongue. He’d been making an effort, ever since the thaw, to try and familiarize himself with modern politics at least as far as he needed in order to understand the new world around him. He’d liked Bud Hammond well enough based on the books he’d checked out from the library. Tony and Natasha both told him he should just get a tablet but Clint seemed to understand his desire to hold a book in his hands. Now he wished he’d looked more up on the internet. Maybe he would have known about TJ sooner and done something to help because there was no doubt in Steve’s mind that if he had seen that that face after the thaw, nothing would have stopped him from finding TJ.

Sam just nodded. “It’s messed up. The things they did to TJ. Tony said he was calling someone in to look at the data, someone named Bruce? Said he could figure it out better than we could.”

“Bruce Banner.” And if Tony was calling Bruce there was something seriously, deeply, utterly wrong here. Tony liked Bruce, liked him enough to keep him as far away from HYDRA and stress inducers as he could manage, so if he was calling in Bruce whatever happened to TJ was bad enough to trump Tony’s possessive need to horde and protect his friends.

“Steve?”

It was the first thing TJ had said since Natasha and Tony left. It sounded high and tight and afraid again. Steve didn’t think, just spun on his heel and dashed into the living room. TJ was right where they had left him, perched on the edge of the couch like he was afraid of settling too deeply into it. The TV was still on, a program that looked like the news flashing across its screen. It took Steve a moment to notice the words written in the upper right hand corner of the picture because he was more focused on the wide-eyed look TJ shot over his shoulder as Steve and Sam both came into the room. TJ only spared them a glance though before turning back to the television.

BREAKING NEWS was written in all caps in the corner of the image. There was a podium set in front of a blue background with the presidential seal on it and two men standing side by side behind the podium. Two microphones were set up, so obviously both men were meant to be speaking even though only one was currently. Steve did not recognize him. He did, however, recognize the man standing beside the speaker.

Bud Hammond had his hands clasped behind his back in a poor imitation of military parade rest. He looked off the screen, eyes focused most likely on the audience out of frame. The man at the podium slapped his hand down onto the wood but Bud didn’t even blink.

“We will not let these individuals dictate the course and fate of our nation. We will not allow them to keep the good people of America in fear any longer. I have been in office less than two full months, but the need is pressing and partisan posturing has been set aside in a moment of profound patriotism and respect for the mandate you, you the American people, have given us. We hear your concerns, we understand your fears, and we will not let this issue slip through the cracks,” the man at the microphone said with passion.

Sam muttered something under his breath too low for Steve to hear as the man gestured to Bud. “There is no one better to speak on this issue than my distinguished predecessor and colleague, Bud Hammond. So I leave it to him to explain this new measure to you all.”

Bud stepped forward, replacing the man at the podium. If Bud was the man’s predecessor, the man could only be the new president. With all the chaos surrounding the collapse of SHIELD and the revelation of HYDRA Steve hadn’t bothered to put a face to the title. Now he wished he had. If this man counted Bud as an ally and friend, he was either HYDRA as well or in more danger than he could possibly realize.

Bud Hammond cleared his throat to speak while somewhere miles away his family was being guarded by Clint while they waited for Natasha and Tony to come and escort them all to safety.

“Citizens of this great nation, it is with a heavy heart that I stand before you today. I know you are aware of the tragedy that has befallen my family,” Bud said, looking directly into the camera.

“My son was kidnapped. He was hurt. He was exposed to dangerous, illegal substances, and he was rescued by the grace of a power I can only bend my knees and thank every day for the rest of my life.” The odd thing, the truly terrible thing, was that Bud sounded sincere. His voice choked up at the end of his sentence and he had to look down, had to take a moment to collect himself before he continued speaking. TJ did not look away from his father’s face. He curled in on himself, becoming smaller and smaller on the edge of the couch, but he did not look away.

“My son will never be the same again. The monsters that took him did what they did because they wanted to make their own green man. They wanted to recreate a god, or an alien, or whatever unnatural creature they had seen over and over again on our news each night. They did it to see if they could. Now, my son will carry the burden of their abuse for the rest of his life. Because, make no mistake, the power forced on him is a burden.”

 

TJ made a sound deep in his throat that meant neither panic nor calm, but more like the noise inside his head needed an outlet and that was the best it could manage.

On the screen, Bud leaned forward and curled his fingers around the edge of the podium. “My son is like those people now. He can do things no human is supposed to be able to do, but my son is not going to let this ruin his life or change who he is as a person.

“TJ has always been a model of bravery and civic-minded duty. That is why TJ has become the first enhanced human to register himself with the Department of Homeland Security’s Enhanced Human Registration Act. When he is well enough to greet you, America, and talk to you about this issue that is so dear to his heart, he will. In the interim, know that he asks anyone with enhanced abilities—people like the men and women who defended us in the Battle of New York—to come forward and register as well. It is what your country asks of you.”

“Why would he say that?” TJ whispered, still looking at the screen. “Why would he tell the whole country what happened to me?”

Steve opened his mouth, realized he had nothing comforting to say that wouldn’t also be a lie, and snapped his jaw closed again. The truth was, he had no idea why Bud Hammond would do something like this to his own child. He had no idea how anyone could look at TJ and not feel the deep, instinctive need to protect him. And that was the difference between TJ and Bucky. For all that they had the same face, there was just something innocent about TJ, something so young. For the first time since he rescued TJ from the cell it was glaringly obvious how different TJ and Bucky were. The Bucky Steve knew, the one that fell from that train all those years ago, wouldn’t have been surprised by the betrayal. Saddened, but not surprised. It was hard to find anything surprising after the POW camp and WWII. Bucky had seen the depths to which humanity could sink.

But TJ hadn’t, not yet. He gaped at the television, eyes over bright and blinking rapidly. There were no tears, but that seemed more a matter of willpower than anything else. “He never even asked me. Why is he making what they did to me into national news?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said because it was the truth and that was all he had to offer.

“Your family will be here soon,” Sam said. He reached out and set his hand on TJ’s shoulder. It was a small gesture, simple and unobtrusive, but it had TJ sinking back into the touch like he was starved for it.

A soft ding filled the room as the light above the elevator doors blinked a calming blue. The only people who were allowed up to this floor were those with security clearance that had been assigned by JARVIS so whoever was in the elevator was someone Tony approved of entering his space. Steve turned his right ear towards the doors and focused just enough to hear the soft burr of a woman’s voice.

“What do you mean you can’t come to dinner tonight? You’re the one that made the reservations. I had to reschedule a meeting. A really important meeting, Tony,” Pepper Potts said sharply as she marched out of the elevator.

It never ceased to amaze Steve how completely Ms. Potts could command a room even when she wasn’t trying. Sam and TJ turned to focus in on her as well and Sam actually gave a small squeak of awe as her heels clicked against the floor. Ms. Potts didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see Steve despite the fact that they had only officially met once, right after aliens had tried to invade the planet and everyone had been a bit dazed and out of sorts. She smiled even while rolling her eyes at whenever Tony was saying on the other end of the line.

And then she froze. Her eyes narrowed and cut towards the hand holding her cell phone to her ear. “What was that sound? Was that a gunshot? Where are you that there are guns to be shot at you?”

Her eyes narrowed still further. “Don’t you dare hang up on me.-Tony? Tony?” She gave a well deserved snarl of frustration and stabbed a finger at the screen of her phone. The bright image of Tony’s face blinked out, leaving the face of the phone black. It was then that her eyes slid past Steve to take in the others in the room. The smile she flashed Sam was genuine despite the frustration still clearly evident.

“Hello. I don’t think we’ve met yet. My name is Pepper Potts,” she said, holding her hand out to shake his. Sam looked more star struck shaking her hand than he had when he had been introduced to anyone else yet.

“Sam Wilson,” he said with perfect composure.

The smile tugging up her lips broadened. She shifted that smile onto TJ and froze once again. The color drained from her face.

 

“Oh my god, Tony kidnapped TJ Hammond,” she whispered. Ms. Potts rounded on Steve, eyes wide. “Did Tony kidnap TJ Hammond?”

Without waiting for a response, she whipped back around to face TJ. “Are you alright? Is there someone I should call?”

TJ shook his head, eyes as wide as Ms. Potts’.

“There seems to be a helicopter approaching from the south face of the building,” JARVIS said conversationally.

Were Tony and Natasha back already? They had to get all the way to DC and only about an hour had passed since the time they left. How fast could they get to Elaine Barrish’s house and back?

By the couch, Pepper snapped to attention.

“The south face of the building?” she repeated.

“Yes, ma’am,” JARVIS replied. “Shall I initiate Protection Protocol Alpha?”

“Alpha, yes. And call Tony back. Tell him we have a lot to talk about when he gets home,” she said as she hurried around the couch. “TJ—can I call you TJ?—TJ, come with me.”

She wrapped her hand around TJ’s wrist and pulled him up from where he sat. She locked eyes with Steve. Her face was set, lips pressed firmly together. Steve almost missed the slight tremble in the corner of her mouth. He didn’t know her very well, so it was hard to tell how much of that tight expression was anger at Tony for doing something she thought was dangerous and how much of that was actual fear.

“No one with clearance to land on this building would approach from the south face. Whoever’s in that helicopter isn’t a friend,” she said as she guided TJ around the couch.

And then an explosion shattered the windows. Steve watched it in slow motion, took in the way Pepper and TJ were lifted off the ground as glittering shards of glass sliced at their clothing and mixed with their hair. Everything was silent save the high pitched whistling in his ears.

TJ squeezed his eyes shut. Sam lifted his hands to protect his face. And then the sound came back on with a vengeance. Steve braced himself and opened his arms wide to catch Pepper and TJ before they could slam into the wall behind him. Sam rolled, curling his back so the momentum of the blast brought him back to his feet further down the hall.

“Everyone alright?” Sam asked.

Steve craned his neck around the corner of the wall to make sure Sam was alright. There was a thin trickle of blood leaking from a cut above Sam’s eyebrow but he seemed otherwise unharmed.

“What was that?” TJ gasped. His fingers dug hard into Steve’s arm, so hard it actually hurt.

Men began to repel from some unseen point through the broken window and into the room. They looked like the STRIKE team, like Rumlow and his men used to look when they descended on a target. Where was the shield? They needed something for cover, something he knew their bullets would not be able to blast through. Every single one of the men had a high powered rifle and every single one of those rifles were pointed at people Steve should be protecting.

“Hand over the asset and no one needs to get hurt,” one of the men said as three more rushed into the room and began to spread out. There were five of them in all, one to cover Steve, Sam, Pepper and TJ and a fifth to watch all of them.

Pepper bowed her head and pressed close to Steve. She was a tall woman to begin with, but with the heels it brought her face close to his ear. Despite the way her spine bowed and despite the fear her stance projected, Pepper wasn’t shaking.  
“The lab is a safe room. We can lock it down,” she whispered.  
So it wasn’t fear that brought her close, it was planning. She pulled back. There was determination on her face and nothing else. Steve could see exactly why she and Tony worked so well together. Looking down hostile board members or hostile home invaders, Pepper Potts was unruffled and her calm was infectious.

TJ however, didn’t seem soothed. He wasn’t afraid either. Instead, there was anger in the hard lines of his spine. He shifted and stood in front of Steve and Pepper both, effectively blocking Sam from the gunmen as well.

“Stay away from them,” he hissed.

The man who’d spoken before gestured with his gun. “Then step over here and they’ll be fine.”

Steve could hear Sam slipping further down the hallway now that TJ was the main focus of the gunmen. He had to be getting the shield or a weapon or something.

“Are you people HYDRA?” TJ went on, bold as…as Steve used to be when he knew Bucky was there to back him up.

“Just come with us. Compliance will be rewarded. Just come with us,” the man said as his associates crept in closer and closer. Pepper slipped her hands around TJ’s arm and locked her fingers when he took a small, shuffling step forward. He had his head tilted to the side, face scrunched with confusion as well as anger now.

“What?”

“Just come with us. Compliance will be rewarded,” the man said, enunciating each word clearly and succinctly.

TJ took another step forward. Steve reached out and caught the arm Pepper didn’t already have a grip on. “You don’t have to go with them.” There wasn’t much he could do to stop the men if they really wanted to push the issue and there could be little doubt that was exactly what they intended to do. No one initiated an invasion on Tony Stark’s home if they didn’t intend to follow through. Steve could probably get himself out of this situation, Sam was good enough at what he did to know when to duck and cover, but TJ and Pepper? They were civilians, no matter what HYDRA was trying to make TJ into. They weren’t going to be able to fight their way out of this room and Steve wasn’t going to let them get hurt.

One of the men who, up until now, had been creeping along the edges of the room, made a lunge for TJ. Steve caught the motion too late, preoccupied with the way the spokesperson for the group raised his gun to point it directly at TJ’s chest. By the time Steve realized that the first operative was reaching for TJ, Pepper was already moving. She knocked TJ backward into Steve, pushing them both further away from the armed assailants.

Undeterred, the man grabbed Pepper instead. He leaped back, falling in line with the operatives around him. Pepper struggled in his grip, prying at his gloved fingers until the man pressed the tip of his gun against her gut. She froze, and this time there was fear in her eyes.

“Give us the asset and the woman doesn’t need to die a terribly slow, painful, death,” the spokesman said. His words were less precise now than they had been when speaking to TJ. He sounded frustrated. Good. He deserved to be frustrated, but not when a member of his team had a gun pointed at Pepper Potts. Frustrated people did stupid things.

Stupid things got people killed.

“Just stay calm. No one needs to get hurt here,” Steve said. He didn’t know where to put his hands. TJ was still watching the spokesman like he held the secrets to the universe and while he wasn’t walking towards the gunman any longer there was no telling what he would do if the guy started repeating the line about compliance again. If Steve didn’t know any better he would say it was a trigger phrase of some kind, but he wasn’t sure what they were trying to trigger. If TJ was supposed to be their highly skilled assassin why let some random HYDRA goon know the words needed to make him cooperate?

“Actually, you all have to get hurt,” the spokesman said. He lifted his rifle a little higher and lined up the sight with Steve’s chest. TJ moved in front of Steve at once, blocking the shot. No amount of effort could get him to shift and Steve was hesitant to make any sudden motions less it set off the gunman targeting him or the one restraining Pepper.

“No witnesses,” the man restraining Pepper said easily, like he was commenting on the weather.

“Just a matter of how fast or how slow you all go,” the spokesman added. “How much pain you need before you understand your proper place.”

“Pain brings order, after all,” another of the assailants said and for some reason Steve was surprised to hear a woman’s voice beneath all that tactical armor.

Pepper was flushed, red in the face and wide-eyed. Her skin had a glossy, damp sheen to it now that looked distinctly unhealthy. She wasn’t looking at Steve anymore. Instead, she was focused on the cracked picture on the opposite wall facing the hallway. The glass was bright. Reflective.

There was something wrong with Pepper’s skin. The red was not a flush, because flushed skin didn’t flicker gold like the embers of a fire.

“Order from pain,” she muttered.

Her eyes cut away from the picture. Sam’s voice echoed from behind Steve, shouting, “Down!” And Steve’s body fell into the same rhythm it found during the fight on the helicarriers, the rhythm he thought no one but Bucky would ever have with him. He threw himself flat to the ground, dragging TJ down with him as, over their heads, the vibranium shield rocketed past and smashed into the spokesperson with enough force to knock him back into the gaping whole of the window. The shield stopped, struck the wall and collapsed to the floor while the gunman teetered against the window frame for one heartbeat more before gravity won out and he toppled out of sight.

Someone shouted something vicious and angry. TJ tried to stand, but Steve wouldn’t move himself and the protection his bulk offered until he could assess the best plan of action. They needed to get Pepper away from—

As the thought passed through his head Steve watched fire dance beneath Pepper’s skin. She lifted her hands, fingers splayed wide, and slammed one paml down on her assailant’s neck while with the other she pushed the gun away from herself to face the ground. The man restraining her howled in agony as the stink of burning meat and plastic filled the room.

Steve did not let himself get distracted by the sight. Pepper was on their side, anything she did to protect herself was good. Sam was already flinging himself at the third gunman, wrenching him backward and off balance so that he could not shoot anyone. The other two wasted no time setting their targets on Steve. He rolled away from TJ, knowing their guns would follow him. He didn’t want to kill anyone, but he would if they tried to hurt his friends—

But he needn’t have worried. Pepper flung two smoldering pieces of what looked like melted gun metal at the two with enough force to knock them back over the edge of the couch—righting it from where it toppled over in the original blast that broke the windows. After that it was a matter of two quick blows and the intruders were incapacitated.

Pepper was still glowing faintly golden, the edges of her suit skirt singed.

“What,” Sam gasped as he stood over the fallen intruder, “is Protection Protocol Alpha?”

“Me,” Pepper said. The fire dimmed beneath her skin.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you again to the lovely Annaparma for the edits. This chapter would be a mess without them.

There were times when the world slid out of focus. Normally, TJ knew when these times were coming, could determine when they would occur, because they were confined to the moments immediately preceding the first hit of cocaine entering his system. It didn’t last long, but for the few minutes that it did everything else in the world felt better. Felt quiet. He couldn’t remember who first introduced him to the drug, only the soft, sweet feel of silence in his head that came after it.

It felt like that now, like silence was seeping into his bones and brain. Some distant part of TJ knew he should be upset by this, frightened even. He’d been so angry, so hurt by the press conference and what Dad did, and then the soldier came into the apartment. There’d been gunshots, he was sure of it, but he couldn’t…quite…Someone said something, some familiar phrase, and now the attack didn’t seem to matter. Nothing mattered, he was in a void and the emptiness he felt inside was all over, quieting every last inch of his body. TJ didn’t remember who set the couch upright again, or when he ended up sitting on it, a blanket draped over his shoulders. He didn’t care. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this still.

He was empty, a blank slate waiting to be molded, waiting to be remade…if he just…complied. It was peace.

Somewhere along the line Pepper Potts had changed from her singed clothing and into a comfortable pair of pants and a loose shirt. She was busy on the phone speaking in the sort of briskly efficient manner that reminded him of his mother. Sam and Steve bustled around him, sweeping up shattered glass and pieces of broken things. Steve was pretending he wasn’t trying to keep TJ in his immediate line of sight at all times, but TJ didn’t care. That wasn’t important either. It had been, before the stillness and the silence filled his brain. He’d been upset at Steve for something, and Steve had looked wrong—too big or too small—he couldn’t remember.

A woman with brown hair pulled up into a tight bun came in at some point with a group of heavily armed man with the Stark company logo sewn onto their chests. The woman nodded to Pepper, Steve, and Sam each in turn before directing her associates to collect the restrained intruders to march them away.

Mission failure not an option, something whispered deep in the silence of his mind and for a moment the room was gone, replaced with smooth concrete walls and echoes in his ears.

“Honey, I’m home!” a voice sing-songed from behind TJ. He recognized it, but that wasn’t enough to prompt him into turning around. “Lucy, you got some explaining to do,” Tony said, voice trailing off as he stepped into the room.

Pepper tapped her phone screen and slipped the cell into her pocket before turning to face him. “I think you’re the Lucy in this situation. Care to explain the suit?” she added, pointing to the red briefcase Tony had in his hand. Tony gave a sheepish smile and set the briefcase down on the ground against the hallway wall.

Someone gasped. Loudly. And the silence was suddenly replaced in TJ’s head with the bright, pulsing realization that he recognized that voice and if Mom was here Dad might be as well.

“Mom?” he asked, twisting around in the chair.

Mom stood in the entryway, just outside the elevator doors. Her eyes were wide and startled as she took in the broken window, and Steve and Sam standing somewhat guiltily in front of the mess. Behind her Dougie and Anne stood on either side of Grandma, a hand on each of her elbows like they were there to support her should she fall. TJ knew the touch was more to support them than to support Grandma, who didn’t seem all that surprised by the mess she was walking into and the obvious evidence of a fight it spoke of. Her eyes found TJ’s and she gave a little nod.

Dad was nowhere to be seen. Instead, just behind Grandma, Natasha ushered everyone out of the elevator. Two men TJ didn’t recognize stepped into the room at her insistence. One was dressed in a strange combination of purple and black leather, holding a bow and quiver of arrows. The other was a man who projected nervousness as he wrung his hands and glanced around the room like he was bracing for an attack. He pressed his glasses further up his nose and stepped very pointedly and very slowly to the side and away from the group so that the elevator doors closed behind him. He was closest to Tony now.

“I think it’s all very self-explanatory,” Tony went on like he hadn’t heard the gasp. 

He made a beeline for Pepper and seemed caught between wanting to hold her and respecting the possibility that she might not want him to in front of a room full of people. “Self, I said, let’s explain what’s going on here and self said ‘get someone more qualified to explain things.’ I’m not good with words. Feelings, All that delicate stuff. And biology isn’t my thing. Did you really have to resort to Protection Protocol Alpha?”

"Yes, I did. I told you we should make the lockdown code verbally accessible. The glass people will be here in an hour to fix the window,” Pepper added.

“You said this place was safe!” Mom shouted. The unexpectedness of it made TJ flinch. There was too much sound in his head again, pressure building up in his skull so that it made him slightly nauseous. Mom swept across the room and reached for him. TJ flinched again.

It was involuntary, not something he even realized he was doing until the armrest hit his back. For a moment her eyes widened, lips parted, and then Mom let her hands fall back to her sides. Her face slipped into the soft, non-threatening expression she normally used around donors, but had never directed at TJ before.

He could hear roaring in his ears and couldn’t look away. For some reason it felt like he was seeing Elaine Barrish for the first time. Like she was a completely different person.

“This place is safe. Do you see anyone hurt here? I don’t see anyone hurt here. Well, anyone who matters,” Tony said dismissively.

“Your house was attacked! People attacked my brother!” Dougie said. He still held onto Grandma’s elbow and TJ was reminded strongly of a child with a security blanket. It was nice to know he wasn’t the only one who looked to Grandma as the lifeline to reach for in a moment of panic.

“To be fair, your house was attacked as well,” the man in purple said. He shrugged at the look Natasha gave him for the comment.

“Everyone’s fine,” Tony repeated with a dismissive wave of his hand that contradicted the sharp look in his eyes as he inspected his broken window. “HYDRA really wants their Pinocchio back.”

“My son is not a toy,” Mom hissed, like an angry cat or a snake about to strike. She didn’t seem to like Tony Stark all that much. TJ didn’t see much of a problem with the Pinocchio comment aside from the sudden realization that he didn’t feel like a real boy at all.

“I think we’ve all had an exciting, shitty day and if I don’t get a martini and some time to sit with my grandson in the next ten minutes, I’m going to be exceptionally pissed off,” Grandma declared.

TJ snorted. There was never silence in his head when Grandma was around and it wasn’t a problem. The sound she prompted in his head was grounding, familiar and safe. Different than even Dougie or Mom. She meandered her way away from the hands on either elbow with an expert hip twist that spoke of her time on the stage. As she passed by the couch, she gave Mom a pat on the arm and then plunked herself down next to TJ.

“Alright,” she continued once she got herself comfortable beside him on the couch. “You got us all here, Mr. Tight-Lips. Now, why don’t you explain why you need a gamma physicist to explain what’s going on with TJ.”

Gamma Physicist? TJ craned his neck around Mom to look at the mousy man with glasses standing beside the closed elevator. There was only one person he could think of that was both a gamma physicist and known to interact in Tony Stark’s circle of dangerous people. He was on the news back when TJ was in high school, his face splashed all over the place as a manhunt for the monster he housed took place. It meant that the man smiling like he was about to apologize for disappointing them all was Bruce Banner. The man who turned into a giant green monster strong enough to take on alien creatures flying around the skies of New York.

“Dr. Banner is versed in more than just gamma physics, although gamma radiation is relevant to the conversation,” Natasha said. She didn’t seem to have a problem with the Hulk being un-Hulked-out in the apartment. For some reason it was calming to see her calm. Natasha came across as the sort who would be perfectly comfortable letting someone know she didn’t want to be in the same room as a potential threat, so if she was acting like Bruce Banner was safe TJ was willing to play along.

Dr. Banner, on the other hand, winced at her words. He ran a hand through his curly hair and glanced at the floor. His brows furrowed before he looked up and caught Tony’s gaze. Something passed between them, some wordless communication that TJ could recognize but not interpret. At once, Tony stepped away from the broken window, Steve, Sam, and Pepper clustered around it, to spread his hands wide.

“It’s been a long day. Why don’t you all get set up in the guest bedrooms and we can talk about this more tomorrow,” he suggested, but it didn’t sound like he was all that interested in hearing their responses. “I’ll even make you the martini myself,” he added with a wink to Grandma.

TJ frowned at Dr. Banner. The doctor was doing the wordless communication thing with Natasha now, only this time there was an edge of sadness to the slightly raised arch of his brows and down turning of his lips. Natasha’s expression remained neutral but she nodded just enough for TJ to catch the motion.

They knew something. All of them, everyone in the room knew something about what was going on with him and none of them were ready to share. They were going to send TJ back to bed with his head full of echoes—ghosts from some fucked up experiment he had no control over—and they expected him to just go along with it, to just smile and say it was fine. Well, it wasn’t.

Every second that passed made him feel closer and closer to losing his mind.

“If you know something, I want to hear it now,” TJ said. He stood up. He wanted to be on the same eye level as Dr. Banner. The same eye level as everyone else in the room. He could feel Steve’s gaze boring into the back of his head, could almost feel the trepidation radiating off of him. Maybe he didn’t know anything either, maybe he knew as much as everyone else in the room, either way, TJ didn’t want to look at him right now. Looking at Steve Rogers was making his head hurt worse than anything else ever had. Looking at Steve Rogers made his head so loud all TJ could do was wish for the silence again.

Dr. Banner hesitated. He didn’t look at Tony or Natasha this time, so he didn’t feel like he needed their approval before he could make a decision. For some reason, that autonomy mattered a lot to TJ. Instead, Dr. Banner kept his focus on TJ. It was respectful and might have been something TJ was grateful for if not for the way his hands were shaking and damp from fear. He already had an idea about what happened—a crazy, impossible idea that he was afraid to tell anyone about—but maybe Dr. Banner would have good news. Maybe Dr. Banner would be able to tell TJ that he wasn’t actually crazy for thinking HYDRA had tried to forcibly turn him into a different person. A person who had been dead for years.

“I’m not sure if now is the best time to go over this,” Dr. Banner said. “You might want some privacy.”

“How did this guy even get a chance to look over any information? We literally picked him up at the airport as soon as we got to New York,” Dougie said sharply. He would have been much more polite if he knew the man he’d just snapped at could turn into a rage-fueled, green monster, but Dougie was never as interested in science as TJ. He didn’t remember who Dr. Banner was, even if he would have remembered the Hulk.

“I sent him the relevant files as soon as we found them,” said Tony. He didn’t sound flippant at all anymore. The serious note in his voice made the bottom of TJ’s stomach drop and his hands clench. If Tony sounded serious whatever, Dr. Banner had to say couldn’t be good.

“This is family business,” Mom said. She glanced at the others in the room, eyes narrowed in uncertainty, but TJ just shook his head. It didn’t matter if they heard. Hell, some small part of him felt like they had the right to. These people didn’t know him and they invited TJ into their home, helped to protect his family, let him attack them and still didn’t make TJ leave. He was dangerous, he could see that now, and these people deserved to know what they had invited into their home.

“They can stay,” he said, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually look Mom in the eyes. Privacy was so important to her, to everyone except for TJ because he couldn’t remember a time when his life wasn’t on display for everyone to see. He existed under a microscope. At least these people seemed to care.

“Are you sure you want to go into this now?” Dr, Banner asked once more. “We have time. It can wait until morning.”

TJ shook his head. “I need to know.”

The doctor took a deep breath and sighed. His shoulders hunched and he looked off in the direction of the hallway before turning back to TJ. For a second his eyes slipped past TJ, onto Steve, and then he focused again.

“This is going to be hard to hear,” he said. His voice was soft, calm, lacking all of the hesitation he had when he entered the room. “Tony called me in because the files Natasha recovered from SHIELD had data from HYDRA embedded in them as well. That data had a file in it, composed of years and years of research on the same project. The Winter Soldier Project.”

“The project they tried to start up with Bucky,” Steve muttered from somewhere behind TJ’s shoulder.

For a moment Dr. Banner looked pained. He nodded. “Yes, the same project. It started back in WWII but it didn’t end there. They…they managed to continue the project after you crashed the plane into the ocean,” Dr. Banner said, looking directly at Steve this time. “They found Sergeant Barns and continued the experiments they were conducting while he was a POW.”

 

“What experiments?” TJ asked. The pressure in his head was building to the breaking point. He could hear, distantly, the sounds of screaming and the over that sound, repeating over and over again; serial number 32557038.

“They wanted to replicate the super soldier serum that Steve was given. Arnim Zola made several dozen variations of the formula before they finally got it right, and even then it wasn’t the same as the one Abraham Erskine created,” Dr. Banner said.

“What difference does that make? Why do we need the history lesson?” Dougie demanded. He was close to Anne, holding her hand and they both watched Dr. Banner with the wide-eyed look of children about to be told the boogie man was real. TJ couldn’t feel anything anymore. His whole body was slowly going numb as the voice in his head grew louder, repeating the numbers over and over again.

“It matters because Zola didn’t realize his formula worked until after James Barnes fell from the train in the Alps and was recovered by HYDRA. He shouldn’t have been able to survive the fall, but all of their files indicate he survived in relatively good condition despite losing an arm to injury and exposure. Which meant that HYDRA had their own super soldier, if they could figure out how to mold him into an obedient supporter of the cause.”

“They couldn’t. Bucky would never work for HYDRA, not after what they did in the war. Not after what they did to him,” Steve said fiercely.

TJ was cold. His whole body was shaking but he couldn’t feel it anymore. He knew how this was going to end. He understood what HYDRA did now. They wanted Bucky Barnes, their super soldier, and he sure as hell wasn’t Bucky and he sure as hell wasn’t a soldier, but if they tried hard enough, if they shoved enough into his skull, maybe they could shove the memories of a super soldier into his head. Maybe they waited years after Bucky Barnes finally gave up and died for someone else to come around that looked enough like him to throw at Captain America. Like a sleeper agent, ready at a moment’s notice to take out the enemy. It would explain why TJ was so instantly and immediately attracted to Steve Rogers. HYDRA wanted him to be their killer and Steve was their biggest threat. Throw a guy who looks like his best friend at him and he’d never see the knife in time to keep it from doing harm.

As if sensing his thoughts, Grandma stood up and locked her arm around TJ’s. She didn’t say anything, didn’t try to pretend they weren’t all about to get terrible news, but it helped. Mom, on the other hand, was watching Dr. Banner like she thought he might grow a second head. She looked pale, paler than TJ had ever seen her. Maybe she knew what was coming as well.

“He didn’t work for them willingly,” Natasha said in soft tones. Her neutral expression was still there, but it looked slightly off now, a little too tight around the eyes to truly be unaffected. “He fought for a long time, but they won. It’s in the file…There are videos. They unmade Bucky Barnes and what they put in his place was the Winter Soldier.”

“What does this have to do with gamma radiation or gamma physics?” Mom asked. She took a step closer to the back of the couch and TJ. He couldn’t tell if it was meant to protect him or her.

Dr. Banner smiled that deeply sorry smile again and rubbed his hands on the side of his hips like his palms were sweaty as well. “Have you ever heard of the immortal jellyfish?”

Mom blinked rapidly, thrown by the odd question, She looked to TJ and Grandma, even glanced at Steve, but all three shook their heads in equal uncertainty.

“HYDRA figured out how to erase memories—More accurately, they figured out how to suppress them actively within the human mind. Their notes are fairly complicated, but what it boils down is this; they found a way to do enough damage to the brain to destroy the neural connectors that store long term memories—the things that keep track of old memories and the sense of self—without destroying the part of the brain that stores things like instinctive reactions, muscle memory, and short-term memory. They used this on James Barnes enough times that, eventually, he didn’t know he was trying to resist them anymore.”

“It’s like mind control,” the man with the bow and arrows said with a deeply uncomfortable frown. “He didn’t know who he was or why he was with HYDRA. So when they put a weapon in his hands and told him who to kill, he didn’t know it was wrong.”

The sound of wood snapping made TJ jump. He whipped around to find that the broom Steve had been using to sweep up glass had snapped under the strain of his tight grip. He looked ill, on the verge of vomiting from this information. TJ still didn’t care if these people knew what HYDRA did to him, but if he had know the explanation was going to draw so heavily on Steve Rogers’ and Bucky Barnes’ tragedy he wouldn’t have asked Dr. Banner to explain while Steve was still in the room.

“What does any of this have to do with my son?” Mom repeated, each word clipped.

“The jellyfish,” Dr. Banner said sadly. “The jellyfish are the connection. Their scientific name is Turritopsis Dohrnii. It’s a jellyfish that can regenerate when threatened or injured.”

“My brother isn’t a jellyfish,” Dougie said coldly.

“And you still haven’t explained what gamma radiation has to do with any of this,” Grandma added, although her interjection was less hostile than Dougie’s.

“Let’s calm down and not gang up on the guy trying to give you an explanation for the crazy things a crazy organization like HYDRA crazily does,” Tony said with an overly bright smile.

Dr. Banner waved him off. “It’s alright. They have a right to be upset,” he said before turning back to TJ. “The Turritopsis Dohrnii can revert back to a polyp stage—think of it as the fetal stage of a jellyfish’s life cycle. Any environmental or physical stressors can trigger the change, and the jellyfish can perform this reversion as many times as the jellyfish would like, making them technically immortal.

“HYDRA learned about the jellyfish and began experimenting on them as well. They wanted to find a way to extract the gene that initiates the regression,” Dr. Banner continued.

TJ could hear the sharp gulps of air Steve took in but he couldn’t make himself turn around and look. He was afraid of what he would see.

“Their notes indicate a…an accident. James Barnes was sent out on a mission just under thirty-one years ago and he was injured. Beyond anything they could help. He was—“ here Dr. Banner hesitated, eyes darting between TJ and Steve.

“He died,” TJ muttered softly. “Bucky died.”

But Dr. Banner shook his head. “Not exactly. A biologist working for HYDRA realized that gamma radiation, when introduced to the regressive gene harvested from the jellyfish, made the gene compatible with human DNA.”

Mom gasped. “Dr. Anderson.”

Dr, Banner nodded. “They injected James Barnes with the Turritopsis serum. They regressed him to a fetal stage, undoing the injuries he sustained in his last mission as the Winter Soldier but rendering him unfit to fight in the process.”

“Unfit to—You just said they turned a grown man back into a baby! Of course he would be unfit to fight,” Anne said. She didn’t even question the logic of what she was hearing—it was one of the things TJ loved about Anne. The openness of her mind was sometimes shocking. She gave a scandalized shudder and pressed close to Dougie. “How could they do something so terrible? To make him th-their slave basically, and then to make him young again so they could do it all over again? It’s a nightmare.”

And now there was no ignoring the roaring, pounding shriek in TJ’s head. He knew Steve wasn’t standing by the window anymore, could feel the heat radiating off of him as they now stood side by side before the couch to listen to Dr. Banner, Grandma holding them both upright with her soft touch on their elbows. Steve leaned forward, one hand gripping the back of the couch so tight the wood of its frame creaked.

“They made him a child and then what?” Pepper asked, and she too sounded like she could hardly stand to hear the answer, could hardly fathom the depth to which HYDRA would sink, could hardly imagine how deeply they could hurt someone.

Dr. Banner hesitated.

Tony’s words from earlier flickered through the chaos in TJ’s mind. Dad was working with HYDRA. James Buchanan Barnes died thirty-one years ago. Or, he died a little over nine months and thirty years ago.

“The records indicate they found a surrogate to carry the child to term,” Dr. Banner said at last, voice soft and full of apology.

Mom lifted a hand to press hard against her chest. She blinked rapidly, looked from Dougie to TJ and then back to Dr. Banner. She’d already made the connection, even if Dougie looked lost and confused.

“Me,” she whispered. “They used me.”

Dr. Banner nodded like his heart was breaking.

He couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t enough air, it couldn’t get in, his body was too full of sounds, of numbers caught on repeat, too many serial number 32557038, and mission failure not an option, and remember that time we went to Coney Island?

“I’m him, aren’t I?” TJ gasped. He looked down at his hands, but they weren’t his hands, they were the hands of a ghost. “I’m James Buchanan Barnes. I’m Bucky.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I took my time with this chapter! We're very close to the end of the story here.
> 
> As always, thank you again to the lovely Annaparma for the edits. This chapter would be a mess without them.

“You’re lying,” Douglas said. Loudly. It rang in Elaine’s ears.

She thought she might be having a heart attack. It was the only logical reason she could think of for why her chest was constricting so tightly, why her breath would not come. Her hands felt numb, but she’d read somewhere—one of the many hospital visits with TJ—that women had back pain when they had heart attacks. Her back didn’t hurt, just everything on the inside, just everything that mattered. 

Elaine knew even before Dr. Banner shook his head and said with infinite sadness, “I wish I was,” that everything he said was the truth. Something that terrible could never be made up. And it meant, without a shadow of a doubt, that Bud was HYDRA. He was one of them. He had let them into his home, into her home, let them do things to Elaine that she had no control over, let them do things to their children, let HYDRA invade their life in every single intimate, devastating way possible. 

For a moment the truth made Elaine dizzy. She gagged, clutching at the satin of her shirt as wild fear ran rampant. How did they do it? How did she not know that someone put a second baby in her womb? How could she not know her own body? How could Bud do this to them?

Elaine took a deep breath and pushed the panic back. 

It didn’t matter. Not the how, not the why. The only thing she needed to know was that it happened and how to deal with it. This didn’t change anything, not one single thing. 

She spun around and reached out for TJ. He stared at her with wide eyes sunk into a pale face. It was the same expression he used to have when he’d wake from nightmares as a child. And god, what had those nightmares actually been about, what had he been seeing when he woke at night? The fall James Buchanan Barnes took from the train, the torture that came after, or the violence these people said he was forced to commit? Worse, what if he remembered becoming a baby—a fetus again? Could someone remember that? Would it hurt, aging in reverse?

The evils the word had done to her baby seemed never ending.

TJ jerked backwards, hands raised and fingers spread, like he was showing them he had no weapon, that he came in peace. He stepped away from Mom and Steve both, eyes still on Elaine. 

“Sweetie—“ she began, but TJ shook his head. He looked at Steve but couldn’t face whatever he thought he saw in the devastation there, looked at Douglas and the desperate disbelief, and then ducked his head. Without a word he walked from the room, flinching away from anyone that came too close.

If it hadn’t been a heart attack before it certainly must be now, there could be no other word for the way Elaine’s chest felt like it was caving in. 

How could Bud do this?

 

Steve took a half step around the couch like he meant to follow, but Mom snagged his elbow and dug her fingers in. 

“Well, this is awkward and terrible. Still want that drink?” Tony asked, eyeing Mom and her locked fingers.

Pepper Pots gasped. “Tony!” 

“Yes. Make it a double,” Mom said without bothering to look away from Steve, who she was currently guiding back down to sit on the couch. “I think the big guy needs one too.”

“Alcohol doesn’t work on me,” Steve said, but it sounded numb. 

“You don’t actually believe this, do you?” Douglas demanded. He marched up to Dr. Banner and jabbed a finger in his chest. His eyes were narrowed and suspicious in a way they almost never were—Douglas wasn’t a suspicious person by nature. It struck Elaine how like Bud he looked in that moment.

“We don’t even know who this guy is. So he says he has a degree? So what. Maybe he’s with HYDRA as well, maybe he’s making this all up so we turn on TJ or something. Chase him out or hand him over to those freaks again,” he said, punctuating each thought with another hard jab at Dr. Banner’s sternum.

Hawkeye darted forward and snatched Douglas’s wrists. He pulled hard, dragging him away from Dr. Banner, who took another step back towards the elevator and breathed deeply.

“Do not jab at Bruce because you don’t like what you heard,” Hawkeye said with a sharp edge that hadn’t yet been present in his tone. “Besides, the plan you dreamt up only works if you’re actually a shit enough brother to hand TJ over because of what you just heard.”

Douglas flushed a blotchy, angry red. “I would never! Never—even if! I wouldn’t!”

“No one said you would,” Mom said dismissively. Tony hopped from foot to foot next to Pepper, not yet started on the drinks. Elaine had the strong impression that he was waiting for Pepper to tell him it was appropriate to slip away to wherever he kept his liquor. She considered telling Pepper that it was fine. Mom dealt with stress in her own way—maybe this time she was right to reach for the booze. 

Sam stepped away from the broken window. He knelt beside Steve—still staring blankly ahead—and asked in a voice so soft she almost missed it, “Are you going to be alright? Do you want to be alone?”

Steve shook his head. Elaine couldn’t tell which question the gesture was meant to answer but Sam could because he nodded. With a reassuring squeeze he stood up and surveyed the room. Anne, silent and staring at Douglas still spluttering at Hawkeye, Natasha leaning casually near Dr. Banner while Dr. Banner continued to breath in and out in regular intervals, to Tony and Pepper. Finally his eyes found Elaine’s. 

“Are you alright, ma’am?” he asked. 

How to answer such a complicated question. Was she alright, now that she knew what had been done to her child—because TJ was hers, would always be hers—or was she worse off than before? Now she knew what Rumlow meant when he said HYDRA was rooting for her to be president. What could be better than the wife of a former president and current HYDRA agent and the mother of their super soldier? From their perspective, she must have seemed like the golden goose. Bud paved the way for the people to accept her and TJ loved her enough to listen where HYDRA’s interference might fail.

How much of her life up to this moment was lived according to someone else’s plan?

How much of TJ’s life, the struggles he’d faced, the problems he’d had, were because of HYDRA and their experiments, interference, and manipulations?

“I am very far from alright. I will be very far from alright until I know my son is safe and HYDRA is burnt to the ground,” she said softly. “But right now, I think I need to speak with my son.”

Sam nodded. “If he went back to the room we set him up in, it’ll be down the hall and to the left.”

“Thank you.”

Elaine marched on stiff legs past the others in the room and down the hallway. A door on the right was open, room empty and bed sheets rumpled. There were more doors on either side of the hall, each of them closed. Elaine chose the last one on the left and turned the handle. It was unlocked. Somehow she’d half expected TJ to bolt the door and refuse to look at her ever again. Instead he was sitting on the floor, back pressed up against the bed. His legs were stretched out in front of him, but not in a way that looked restful. It looked instead like a marionette with his strings cut. He didn’t lift his head when Elaine entered the room and he didn’t lift his head when she closed the door again behind her.

Silence filled the space as Elaine stepped across the carpeting and sunk down to the ground beside TJ. He didn’t move for a very long time, long enough that she thought he might have fallen asleep, claimed by the exhaustion these last few days must have brought him. And then TJ raised his hands. He stared at them, opening and closing his fingers before letting them both drop back down to his lap.

“Am I even human? If what Dr. Banner said is true?” he whispered. Elaine was reminded strongly of church, of the kind of quiet fear she sometimes felt in the face of a god she only vaguely believed in.

“Yes. You’re one of the most human people I’ve ever met,” she replied.

TJ was silent again, still staring. Just like Steve. It made sense now. She could understand where the immediate attraction came from on TJ’s end—some part of him must have remembered Steve, must have missed him after all this time.

“I’m not Bucky. I don’t remember being anyone but me,” TJ said. He shook his head and scrunched his shoulders up close to his ears. “There are-are flashes of things, stuff I thought they put in my head when I…when I was gone.”

“It’s alright, honey. It’s alright if you never remember and it’s alright if you remember it all. It won’t change anything.”

And finally, finally TJ looked at her. There were tears in his eyes. His lips trembled. Every last bit of him spoke of fear.

“I don’t want to remember.”

Elaine nodded. He might change his mind later, he might not, but either way was fine. Whatever TJ wanted, however he wanted to deal with this knowledge, she would support. 

“That’s fine, honey, that’s fine.”

He gasped, shuttering in a breath that set his whole body trembling. “Are you mad?”

For a moment Elaine was lost. Mad? How could she possibly be mad at him? At a child who had no say in what was done to him? Even the man he’d been before, the soldier who fell all those years ago hadn’t had a say in his fate. Drafted into a war he probably didn’t understand, pulling him away from Steve when all the history books said he wanted nothing less. And the man that they sent out as their weapon, their killing machine, had he ever been given a say? When was the last time he had any true autonomy?

“No, no, sweetie,” she said. There was a catch in her voice as well. “I could never be mad at you. Never.”

TJ collapsed against her and sobbed, “Do you still love me?”

Elaine pulled him in close and tucked her head against her son’s. “I will love you until the day I breathe my last breath and beyond. Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you.”

They sat like that for a long time, Elaine running her hands through her son’s hair as he cried silently. Even after the tears stopped they stayed there on the floor of a stranger's room. It meant something that this was the first time since becoming the Secretary of State that Elaine felt like she’d truly connected with TJ.. Even after his accident, they hadn’t had a moment like this. She’d wanted one, but TJ hadn’t. He’d been so closed off, so willing to smile and dazzle when there were other eyes around, that he hadn’t ever really had a chance to talk about what he’d done. She knew on some level that it was because of Sean, but for the first time Elaine considered that the suicide attempt hadn’t been because of a broken heart alone. TJ might not consciously remember what had been done to him, but the sort of horrors he’d suffered didn’t disappear without leaving a trace. 

“I think I’m going to lie down,” he said finally, voice thick.

Elaine hesitated. Her eyes swept the room. Nothing stood out to her as immediately threatening. While she didn’t think he was going to try to hurt himself she also wasn’t sure. It had never occurred to her the first time that TJ might do something like climb inside a car in a closed off garage and turn on the engine of his car. Nothing had ever scared her as badly as seeing him slumped over in the drivers seat. Nothing ever would. 

But there was the voice in the walls here, the one Natasha warned her about before they came in. She could ask it to watch over TJ while he was alone. It wasn’t an invasion of privacy if all she did was ask the monitor to make sure TJ didn’t hurt himself. She was allowed to do that.

“Alright. Do you want anything? Water? Tea?” Once upon a time she used to make TJ and Douglas tea when they weren’t feeling well. She hadn’t made them any in a long time, not since they were still in high school.

TJ shook his head and straightened up. He rubbed at his face with the heels of his palms and groaned. “No. I just kinda want to be alone.”

She nodded. Silently, she stood and pulled back the blankets of the bed. She hadn't tucked TJ in since well before she stopped making him tea. All the things she could have been doing for him, all the shortcomings she'd ever feared she had as a mother were hitting Elaine all at once. She hadn’t been there enough, hadn’t fought for him enough, hadn’t paid enough attention to what was going on in his life to protect him. Would she have noticed if the same were happening to Douglas? What sort of a mother didn’t see that her son was upset enough to try and kill himself? Worse, what sort of a mother missed the warning signs that someone was hurting her child?

Because there had to be warning signs. The year when TJ grew quiet and moody, the same year Douglas came screaming in from the barn insisting that TJ had broken his arm—Bud took TJ to Dr. Anderson. TJ’s arm had been fine by the time they came home. Was that a moment she should have realized something was wrong?

“You don’t have to tuck me in,” TJ muttered, but he crawled into bed anyway and kicked off his shoes. He looked tired. Three lifetimes worth of fatigue weighed down on him.

Elaine pulled the blankets up and tucked them around his shoulders. She pressed a kiss to his forehead and forced herself to pull away. If TJ needed space she would give him space--within reason. She would do whatever he needed her to do in order to make this better.

 

“We’ll be right out in the living room if you need anything. Anything at all,” she said. The urge to linger nearly made Elaine dart back to the bedside when TJ did not answer, but instead she forced herself to walk out the door and close it again behind her.

She waited until she was relatively certain no one could hear before asking aloud, “JARVIS? Can you keep an eye on TJ for me? Let me know if he needs anything or...anything happens?”

“Certainly, ma’am,” the animatronic voice said at once. It sounded like the words were coming from a speaker directly beside her left ear but when Elaine checked there was nothing there. She told herself it wasn’t unsettling.

”Thank you,” she said as she continued her way down the hall.

Everyone was more or less exactly where she left them. At some point while she had been in with TJ the glass repairs must have come because there was a new panel of glass in the window. It seemed rather amazing that Tony Stark could get someone out here that fast, get the right size glass for a replacement and get the glass installed all in the course of an hour and Elaine hadn’t even heard them come in. How often did they break windows here? Was there a repair shop that just kept panels of glass for this building in stock for them?

How much danger came from publicly admitting Tony Stark was Iron Man? 

How much danger was going to follow TJ around now and for the rest of his life? He needed someone to protect him, someone to show him how to put the strength HYDRA gave him or woke in him to good use. And these people, the ones turning to watch her walk into the room, they were the ones that could give him the protection that she couldn’t. Steve Rogers would protect him, would show him how to protect himself, but they needed to have a conversation first.

“How is...is TJ?” Steve asked, twisting on the couch to watch her enter the room. His eyes were red and watery. Mom had her hand on his shoulder. Sam stood beside the couch but made no move to stop Steve when he stood up.

Elaine nodded. She’d been accused of being heartless many times, mostly by political opponents, and most of the time she didn't agree with them. Most of the time she could content herself with the knowledge that she was a loving mother and felt more than she would let anyone see. Right now, however, she had to close her heart off, had to let herself be cold and focused because she couldn't focus on Steve’s tragedy and say what she needed to say about TJ.

“TJ’s alright, but I want to talk to you about what Dr. Banner told us,” she said. 

Steve nodded earnestly. He wiped roughly at his face and sniffed in a way that reminded her strongly of both her sons trying to hold back tears. “Of course. Yeah,” he muttered.

“TJ isn’t--” the remainder of her words died as the phone in her suit pocket began to chirp.

Douglas showed her once how to set different ringtones for everyone in her contact list. Elaine only bothered to change five of them. Douglas, Anne, Mom, TJ and Bud each had their own ringtone.

Bud’s ringtone filled the room.

Slowly, Elaine pulled the phone free. She couldn’t feel her fingers and wasn’t sure if it was anger or something else making her throat burn.

“Bud,” she said aloud, eyes flitting from Steve, to Mom, and then to Natasha. 

“Where is TJ?” Bud asked. He sounded strained, afraid even.

Elaine closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe through the heartache, breath through the betrayal, because if she didn’t she would break down into tears and she hadn’t actually cried since the day she found TJ in that car. 

“You aren’t getting anywhere near TJ ever again. I know what you did, Bud.”

“You don’t understand,” Bud insisted, and the fear in his voice was even more apparent. “I screwed up, I know, but that’s not the point. You don’t know what they did--”

“What you did,” she said angrily.

“They poisoned him, Elaine. Our son is going to die HYDRA doesn't get him back.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to the lovely Annaparma for the edits! These chapters always come out so much better after Annaparma reads them over!
> 
> Hope you like this chapter, we are getting closer and closer to the end...

Steve’s hearing was good, much better than it used to be back before the serum. Good enough that when Elaine answered the phone he could tell who was on the other end of the line even without her angry, “Bud.”

Tony wasted no time. He narrowed his eyes at the phone and said, “JARVIS. Speaker. Now.”

“Certainly, sir,” JARVIS responded, and at once the soft static of a phone connection filled the room.

Elaine didn't react to to her conversation suddenly broadcast for all to hear. Bud’s panicked confession had Bruce and Clint exchanging looks of concern. It made Steve see red. His whole body began to shake, his chest constricting like steel bars pressing his lungs tight. It wasn’t an asthma attack, he couldn't have those anymore, but the feeling of helpless anger was the same. He had to close his eyes and force himself to take deep, calming breaths that stuttered and stuck just below his throat to stop the angry threats he wanted to shout from actually tumbling out of his mouth. For the first time since the war, since Bucky fell, he wanted to hurt someone. Not just fight, not just hit, but hurt. He wanted to tear into Bud, rip him limb from limb, and then find the people that put Bud up to all this and do the same to them.

He’d only felt such blinding rage once before, while sitting at the SSR table and promising to hunt down all of HYDRA. That ended with a seventy year freeze and Bucky’s torture. He needed to stay in control.

“You’re lying,” Elaine said simply, calmly. Not for the first time Steve found himself humbled by her fortitude. He would not have had the strength to speak to Bud with such control where he in her place.

“It’s not a lie. They don’t lie about things like this,” Bud insisted, voice echoing around the room. “They don’t need to, not when the truth is so much worse.”

Elaine shook her head, seeming to forget that Bud could not see the gesture. Maybe she wasn’t as calm as she looked. “This is a lie just like every other lie you’ve ever told. You want something because they want something, but I’m not giving you TJ. He’s somewhere safe, somewhere you won’t be able to get to him.”

“I already know he’s with Stark. They know it too,” Bud said. There was an angry affronted note to his tone, like he thought she was insulting him by assuming he hadn’t been informed of where they had hidden TJ away. Steve felt himself take a half step forward, to do what he wasn’t sure--check on T-Bucky. Because it was Bucky. Bucky was back and here and this man wanted to hurt him and that was not going to happen.

Elaine’s eyes narrowed to angry little slits. Steve positively vibrated with poorly restrained fury. Sam set a hand on his shoulder in a gesture that was meant to be calming, but it hardly registered. Nothing short of driving his fist into Bud’s face was going to bring Steve any calm. He was so angry, so angry and he didn’t know what to do with all the anger inside of him. All the anger in the world wasn’t going to change what they did to Bucky but if Steve did nothing he was going to go crazy.

Tony at least understood that. He took one look at Steve’s clenched teeth and bristling anger and then said, loudly, “Wonderful. So then you know who I can send the bill to for the glass replacement.” 

For a moment there was silence. Steve could actually hear Bud’s surprise in the empty sound and then, “…Who is this?”

“You know who it is. Let’s talk about why you’re full of crap instead,” Tony said. 

“Put my wife on the phone,” Bud said stiffly.

“Ex-wife. Anything you have to say to me, you can say now,” Elaine replied. Her eyes flit to Steve and his deep scowl before darting to her son. Douglas. Douglas was his name. He’d seemed kind and concerned about TJ when there were at the hospital. More so than Bud, whose anger and suspicion made more sense now. Of course he wouldn’t want Captain America anywhere near TJ if he was working for HYDRA.

Again Bud hesitated. Tony rolled his eyes with exaggeration and said, “Look, Bud. Buddy. Can I call you Buddy, or would you prefer Back-Stabbing-Lying-Scumbag? Buddy’s faster. They aren’t going to poison TJ because if he dies that’s a ridiculous amount of time and money invested in a product they can’t use. Hell, they pretty much brought him back from the dead twice because of how much they wanted him.”

And that was a fair point. Why bother killing TJ when they went through all this effort to keep him alive in the first place? 

Bud scoffed. “Do you think it matters to them? They’d kill TJ and not think twice about it.”

“And you would let them.” The words tasted bitter against Steve’s tongue. He knew they were right, could tell just from the way Bud spoke that he wasn’t going to do beyond this phone call to try and save his son.

Not his son. TJ—Bucky had a father, a good father who loved him and cared for him and probably felt like his whole world ended when he heard about Bucky’s death. Bud was a place holder and nothing more. He wasn’t like Elaine, who seemed to care about Bucky, and he wasn’t like Douglas or Elaine’s mother. They might not be blood, but they were Bucky’s family, they were the ones trying to keep him safe now.

“I’m doing everything I can to stop them from hurting TJ. Didn’t you see the press conference?” Bud demanded.

Elaine and Douglas exchanges looks, sharp and fast, before Elaine shook her head and said out loud, “No. What press conference?”

“The one where I stood beside that spineless idiot of a president and pledged our support for his registration act. TJ’s going to be the face of the program,” said Bud. “Keep him in the spotlight so they can’t ferret him away again.”

“Or put him on display so that when something bad happens to him, or they make him do something bad to someone else, it’ll look like more justification for registration,” Sam said grimly. And that made sense. More than Bud’s version of motivation. Maybe he thought HYDRA wanted TJ to be the face of the program for non-nefarious reason, but Steve was willing to bet Sam’s guess was closer to the truth. HYDRA didn’t do anything without a backup plan. If they couldn’t get Bucky to do what they wanted then it worked just as well to have him die as in as public a spectacle as possible and blame it on the same people and traits they were trying to force into registration. They would say it was for the people own good—“don’t want to end up dead like that Hammond kid.”

It was the same sort of rhetoric they used during WWII in Europe with the Jews and America with the Japanese-Americans.

Again there was a long moment of silence before Bud spoke once more. “Let them at least speak to TJ. That’s all they want. They won’t hurt him if you let them speak to him.”

“Bud, you know that isn’t true.” Elaine pressed the pad of her fingers hard into the space between her eyes, face screwing up in pain. She still sounded calm, collected, but everything about her expression spoke of a parent about to break. It was the look Mrs. Barnes had on her face when Bucky came home and showed her his draft papers. Steve hadn’t understood her fear or her sadness then, could think of nothing but his own burning desire to join his friend on the front lines, but he thought Mrs. Barrish would have understood right away. She wouldn’t have needed a death and seventy years to realize the danger Bucky would be walking into.

“Talk to the people who broke into Stark’s apartment. They’ll tell you I’m not lying,” Bud insisted again.

“Lying about what?”

Bucky stood in the hallway, just behind Douglas and Anne. His hair was a mess and his eyes were red rimmed. He didn’t have any shoes on. For some reason that stood out to Steve. In all the ways Bucky could be vulnerable, all the ways he could be hurt, the thing that made Steve flinch was the sight of his bare feet.

And then the urge to sprint across the room and wrap him up tight hit so hard it almost took Steve’s breath away. He wanted to cry, to scream, to sink down onto the floor and beg for forgiveness because this was his fault. It was his fault when Bucky fell and it was his fault that Bucky had been used like a lab rat over and over again.

“TJ?” Douglas said before anyone could stop him. Not that it would have mattered, Bud heard his voice already but the illusions of secrecy, the possibility of convincing Bud that Bucky wasn’t here, that HYDRA was lying, had still been on the table. Steve could see the exact moment the loss of opportunity registered for Natasha and Clint as well by the twisting frown Clint wore and the careful blankness on Natasha’s face.

“TJ? Son, is that you?” Bud asked. There was something high and tight about his tone, like he’d stubbed his tone and was trying to speak through the pain. Good, it should hurt to say any name that Bucky went by after everything he’d done.

Darkness passed over Bucky’s face. His eyes widened and his face paled before his expression caved in on itself. His brows furrowed, lips pulled back into a frown that was almost a snarl as he darted forward, pushing past Douglas and Anne, to snatch the phone from Elaine. She let him take it without a word. Bucky stared at the phone for a moment like he had no idea how it got into his hand before disconnecting the call with a vicious swipe across the screen.

Bucky clenched his fist and the phone gave a panicked wine before it snapped in his hand. He blinked, some of the anger slipping away as he watched the phone crumble in pieces to the floor. The Bucky of Steve’s memories wasn’t weak by any means, but he shouldn’t have been able to crush a cell phone to bits in his bare hands. The strength was a result of whatever HYDRA had been doing to him all this time—But that wasn’t quite right either. It was a result of whatever they did to him before Steve, Natasha, and Sam found him.

Steve remembered how disorienting it was to be that strong so suddenly. He’d been so fast his feet moved before he realized he wanted them to, so strong he’d pulled car doors off their hinges without meaning to for the first month. It took a while before he felt confident enough in his own control to agree to lift any of the girls he worked with on the USO tours without fearing he’d hurt them by accident. 

But control wasn’t hard once you got the hang of it. He could show Bucky, teach him all the little tricks that he’d discovered through trial and error on the road. It might even make some of the aching, throbbing pain in Steve’s chest lesson. He had failed in every way possible to help his friend so far, but in this at least Bucky wouldn’t be alone. 

“Sorry,” Bucky muttered, still staring down at the phone. “I didn’t mean to break it.”

Elaine shook her head and gave a dismissive wave in the phone’s general direction. “It’s fine, honey. It doesn’t matter.”

Bucky said nothing for a moment, milling her words over. He made the same expressions now that he had before the war. It was like the universe shifted on its axis and the last seventy years hadn’t happened. Bucky was back. He was back, right here in front of Steve and he was so much the same, so much like he should be, and no one was ever going to lay a hand on him again. The second he’s seen the huddled form in the cell Steve knew it was Bucky. Knew it. He’d been right all along, would never mistake the other half of his soul.

“What was he talking about?” Bucky asked at last, still not making eye contact with anyone. “What are the people who broke in supposed to tell you?”

No one spoke. It was true that whatever HYDRA told Bud was suspect, but it was equally true that they didn’t know if Bud’s information was wrong. Bucky might very well be poisoned. No one wanted to tell him that thought. Not after everything else he’d been through today. Elaine was at a loss for words, Douglas and Anne were silent. Natasha and Bruce were still off in the far corner of the room, secluded from everyone else, but neither looked like they were going to answer his question. Pepper and Tony communicated silently with one another while Clint and Sam watched Steve, waiting for his reaction.

Elaine’s mother—“call me Margaret”—was the one to break the silence. She stepped around the couch and came in close to Bucky’s side. He watched her approach with slumped shoulders and sad eyes. Margaret took Bucky’s hand in her own and made sure his focus was on her exclusively before speaking.

“The people who hurt you? They’re trying to scare your father. He’s an idiot and a liar, but he called to try and help. He thinks HYDRA poisoned you while you were with them,” she said, slowly, clearly. With the smooth and soothing tones of a woman long accustomed to talking people down from very high, very dark ledges. “We’re going to make sure he’s wrong.”

“And if he’s not?” Bucky asked. He sounded tired, so very, very tired it broke Steve’s heart.

“They we have Dr. Banner and Tony Stark to help us fix the problem,” Margaret said like it was the simplest thing in the world.

Bucky nodded. He looked small. His feet must be cold.

“I’ll call Hill. The HYDRA team is likely still on the premises now, she wouldn’t have had a secure enough location to ship them out just yet,” Natasha said as she pushed away from the wall.

“Because she’s dealing with the one that fell out the window,” Tony said absently. He was watching Bucky as Margaret encircled him in a tight hug, Douglas and Anne creeping cautiously closer to do the same.

“I want to be there when you question them,” Steve told Natasha.

She would get the truth out of them, he didn’t doubt that, and at this point he knew her well enough to understand that her talents with interrogation lent themselves far more readily to manipulation than pain. He wasn’t afraid she’d do something she’d regret in the pursuit of truth. No, Steve was afraid that if he wasn’t there, if he wasn’t actively involved in doing something, he might lose it entirely. He couldn’t stop and let himself think about the implications of Bucky living a whole life without him, from infant to adult, surrounded by a brand new family, experiencing brand new things. He couldn’t think about what had been done to his best friend, what had been done to TJ Hammond, and the shadow memories that kept popping up. Because as long as he didn’t think about it he could see Bucky picking his head up off his grandmother’s shoulders to look at him and not a stranger with the same face. 

The alternative would be too cruel for Steve to survive. 

Bucky never kissed Steve the way that TJ did and he didn’t want to think about what any of that meant either.

“I want to come too,” Bucky said.

At once Elaine shook her head. Her eyes flashed with anger but it was not directed at anyone in the room. It was the sort of impotent rage that Steve felt right now as well. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “I don’t think you should be anywhere near these people. We don’t know what they’re capable of.”

“I need to be there. I just…I need to,” Bucky replied. 

And Steve had never been able to deny Buck anything he truly wanted. Now was no different. He turned to Clint, trying to keep the pleading out of his face and out of his voice but it must have been there somewhere. Clint was by no means a cold man but he didn’t normally go around responding to people making eye contact with him by wincing with sympathy.

“Is there a security room in the building? Can you stay with Bucky while Natasha and I interrogate the agents from the break in?”

“Sure, I can—“

“TJ.”

Clint winced again and looked down. Steve turned back towards Bucky and the family surrounding him. There was a frown on his face, made up of equal parts confusion and anger but no less firm because of it. 

“My name isn’t Bucky,” he said again. “It’s TJ.”

Steve nodded. If suddenly felt like his throat was closing up and he couldn’t breathe. 

“TJ,” he croaked. The word felt raw and painful but he said it anyway. “If you stay in the observation room you’d be able to see and hear anything said, but the HYDRA agents wouldn’t know you’re there. It would be…safer.”

Buck—TJ nodded. He looked down, unable to maintain eye contact. Steve had to turn away. He was going to be sick. He best friend couldn’t even look him in the eye and it served Steve right. Of course Bucky would be more comfortable going by TJ, why would he have assumed anything different? Why did Steve keep making things harder than they had to be?

“Come on. Hill’s downstairs. She’s got a room set up for us,” Natasha said, tucking her phone back into her pocket. 

“I’ll come too,” Elaine said as Steve made his way past TJ with an awkward shuffle.

“Yeah,” Douglas said, “I’ll come too.”

But TJ shook his head. “I need you guys to just stay here. Please.”

And Elaine looked no happier than Steve felt, but she stood there and let Clint usher TJ to the elevator without protest. Douglas was going to argue, but Anne gave him a beseeching look and shook her head until he stopped as well. “Let’s get your mother and grandmother out of these bloody clothes. You too,” she added, gesturing down at the mess on Douglas’s shirt that Steve honestly hadn’t registered.

The fact that Clint had needed to kill the HYDRA agents that went after Bu—TJ’s family fell away somewhere after finding out the truth about TJ. What sort of a person did that make Steve, if he was able to completely ignore TJ’s family because all he wanted to do was focus on Bucky? How selfish a person was he? 

The elevator ride was silent. Natasha said nothing, TJ was too busy not looking at Steve to find words, and Clint looked like the awkward tension was about to make him explode. They followed Natasha’s lead down the winding hall when the elevator finally stopped and found themselves standing outside two doors set beside one another in the otherwise smooth, white walls.

Maria Hill greeted them outside the door. She raised an eyebrow at TJ’s inclusion but did not actually remark on it. Instead she focused in on Natasha. “We’re dealing with the police, FBI and Homeland Security all breathing down our necks right now. I can give you ten minutes with the prisoner, but after that someone is going to notice we’re one maniacal bad guy short.”

Natasha nodded. “So, ten minutes to get the information we need before you have to hand the intruders over to one of the outside agencies. Are any of them clear?”

Hill huffed in exasperation. “As in, lacking in undercover HYDRA operatives? Probably not, but we don’t get a choice this time. That’s what happens when you throw someone out the fortieth story window in the middle of Manhattan.”

“Technically, he fell out the window on his own,” TJ muttered and then immediately flushed bright red when Hill’s sharp gaze cut to him.

“Sure he did,” she said and came very close to smiling. She pointed to the door on the right and reiterated, “You have ten minutes, stop wasting your time talking to me.”

Without further preamble Clint opened the door on the left and gestured for TJ to enter with him. He poked his head inside the room as TJ walked past and made a pleasantly surprised sound. Before closing the door, Clint allowed some of the easy-going calm to slip from his face and said, “We’ll be able to see everything in here, there’s a two way mirror. Should be able to hear everything too. Keep that in mind, Cap.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asked as the door closed in his face.

Natasha shrugged and opened the door on the right. Inside, the interrogation room was drab and uninspiring. The walls were a bright shade of white and the table the HYDRA operative was cuffed to was nothing but a simple, stainless steel getup bolted to the floor. The agent jerked in his restraints, pulling at the cuffs set in the center of the table so that his hands had to be out and clearly visible at all times. He could sit striate in his chair but he could not lean back. The right side of his face was red and raw from Pepper’s fire and there was a cut on the man’s lip, but that didn’t stop him from pulling his lips back into a snarl when Natasha and Steve entered the room.

“We have some questions for you,” Natasha said, ignoring the anger directed her way.

“I’m not going to tell you pigs anything,” the man said. “HYDRA takes no prisoners, if you had any integrity you wouldn’t either.”

“Well, that’s not quite true and we both know it,” Natasha replied. She sat herself down on the chair opposite the HYDRA agents and smiled. It was not a nice smile. Steve was fairly certain the two way mirror had to be in the wall he was now leaning against, trying to look big and intimidating while Natasha did her thing. The HYDRA agent’s eyes flickered to him and then away quickly.

“HYDRA took Sergeant James Barnes prisoner back in WWII and they took TJ Hammond prisoner not two months ago,” Natasha continued.

The HYDRA agent narrowed his eyes. It pulled on the red skin along the burnt side of his face in a way that looked painful but he didn’t seem to notice.

“It’s not a prisoner when it belongs to HYDRA,” the agent countered with a hiss.

Steve was not consciously aware of stepping away from the wall and slamming his fist down on the table until the metal bowed under the force of his blow and the HYDRA agent jumped in his seat. Natasha gave no indication that his outburst surprised her. 

“Buc-TJ isn’t an ‘it,’ he’s a person. And he doesn’t belong to HYDRA,” Steve growled. He felt it low in his chest, the way a dog growls right before it bites someone.

The HYDRA agent leaned as far back in his restraints as he could get, eyes wide and neck craning to stare up at him.

“Let’s talk about TJ Hammond,” Natasha continued like Steve hadn’t moved from his spot on the wall. “What were you hoping to accomplish by breaking in here tonight?”

For a moment the HYDRA agent could not speak. His mouth open and closed as he stared at Steve and then his eyes flickered to the wall he’d been leaning against. Something flashed deep in his eyes, something wild and triumphant.

“It does belong to HYDRA. If it complies everything will be fine. You’ll be happy once you comply,” he said.

Steve pulled back from the table and frowned. “Why do you all keep saying that?”

Natasha sat stiffly in her chair head tipped to the side, watching the agent. “You’ve heard this before?”

“You’ll be happy once you comply,” the agent said again, voice growing louder. 

“When they attacked us. One of them said the same thing to Bu-to TJ.”

The Hydra agent said the words again, for a third time. He opened his mouth to begin the phrase again but Natasha lunged across the table and struck the man, sharp and fast, in the throat. The agent gagged and doubled over as much as he could in the restraints at the exact same moment a booming crash came from the other side of the glass. 

Steve and Natasha glanced at each other and then moved as one to the door. It was locked from the outside.

Another crash came from the other room.

“I’ll break it down, move!” Steve shouted.

Natasha jumped clear of the door but not clear of the glass that exploded outward from the two way mirror. She dropped to her knees and covered her head as shards showered her head and face. Clint came sailing through the newly made opening. It was instinct more than anything else that enabled Steve to catch him before he hit the table and the man bound to it.

The other room was empty. Even from where Steve was standing he could see the door pulled clear of its hinges. It must be what was blocking their own door, propped up in the hall between the two narrow walls to barricade them in the interrogation room. Bucky was nowhere to be seen.

The HYDRA agent threw his head back and laughed. 

“What happened?” Steve demanded. He rounded on the man while guiding Clint to his feet. Clint groaned and rubbed at the back of his head.

The HYDRA agent kept laughing. “The asset is returning to his master,” he said. And then he grinned a vicious grin and shifted his jaw in a way Steve had seen hundreds of times before during the war.

“Hail HYDRA,” he said.

Natasha moved faster than anyone without the super soldier serum should ever have been able to move. She dug her fingers into the man’s jaw, forcing it open, and then shoved her hand in between his lips. After a moment she extracted her fingers, a false tooth clutched between them. The HYDRA agent looked on as the false tooth and the pill it hid with stark horror.

“I am so sick of those things,” Clint muttered, squinting at the tooth.

“What just happened?” Steve demanded.

“Trigger phrase. They must have been able to set one up while TJ was kidnapped, or maybe back when he was a kid,” Natasha muttered. She moved across the room to hoister herself through the broken mirror.

“JARVIS,” she said. “Lock down the building. Don’t let TJ out. Tell Tony what happened.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Hammond is currently exiting the building. Shall I tell Mr. Stark this as well?”

“Yes,” Natasha growled, her back to Steve.

And that barely controlled anger, that burning, simmering rage that Steve was trying so hard to keep under control boiled over. It felt like he was watching himself move from very far away, like he was dreaming as he wrenched the cuffs off the HYDRA agent and pulled the man up by the front of his uniform to slam against the wall. He didn’t care if it hurt, he didn’t care if he kept his strength in check this time. He’d only ever wanted to make someone afraid once before, and that was after he watched Bucky fall from the train.

“Where is Bucky supposed to go back to? Where’s the rendezvous point?” he snarled.

The man shook his head. His eyes were wide with fear but his conviction did not waver. “I’m not going to tell you. Kill me if you want, but I’m loyal to HYDRA.”

Steve’s fingers tightened on the fabric of the man’s clothing, his free hand curling into a fist. He wanted to so much to hurt the man, to make him feel all the pain and fear that they’d been forcing Bucky to live with for years—

“Steve, put him down and step away.” Natasha never used that tone with him. It was too cold, too controlled. That, more than anything else, pulled Steve back from that very dark, very steep ledge. 

He released his hold on the HYDRA agent and let him fall to the floor. He hit the ground hard and pressed his back into the wall. Steve stepped away. Natasha pat him once on the arm before she moved to crouch down before the agent. Her face was carefully blank.

“Tell us where the rendezvous point is,” she said. “You know where they’re going to pick him up because your team was supposed to get TJ there in the first place.”

The HYDRA agent shook his head but this time could not bring himself to speak any word of defiance. 

Natasha nodded like this was not an upsetting or even important reaction. “If anything bad happens to TJ, you know that he’s going to kill you, right?” she said, pointing back over her shoulder towards Steve.

Something small and terrible in the deep spaces of his heart crumbled at how easily Natasha said those words. Steve wasn’t a killer—he had killed in the service of his country and in order to protect people, but he wasn’t a killer. He didn’t enjoy it. The way she spoke made those things not matter. The way she spoke marked his reaction for the very near miss it truly was.

“I-I’m prepared to die for my cause,” the agent squeaked.

Natasha smiled. “That’s good. Have you read the files on the Winter Soldier project? Or course you have.” She leaned in close to the agent, her smile twisting into something very cold and very competent. “Captain America might kill you for what you and HYDRA have done but me? For me, this hits a sore spot. I’m going to get creative.”

The agent tried to sink deeper into the concrete wall, but there was nowhere to go. For the first time since he’d known her Steve understood how terrifying Natasha could be. 

“Tell us where TJ went, or I will make sure every last thing that was ever done to him will be done to you. I’ll recreate every step of the Winter Soldier project and I’ll use you as the guinea pig. Do you know that they amputated his arm while he was awake? Without any anesthesia. Or that they cut away parts of his brain?” Natasha said and it made Steve want to be sick. He had to close his eyes because everything she said was true. Someone actually did those things to Bucky. For years, HYDRA did those things to him and now he was going back to them unless they could stop him.

The HYDRA agent paled and gasped. “You can’t—“

“I can. I will. I’ll make it last lifetimes, just like HYDRA has. Unless you tell me what I want to know,” Natasha said.

The agent broke. He nodded wildly. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to the lovely Annaparma for the edits!

They inserted themselves into Bud’s life very early on. It happened gradually, so gradually in fact that he didn’t realized they were there until it was already too late. Like a cancer, growing inside him while he smiled and went about his day. Dreams of stepping into the political arena struck Bud long before he had the money or the reputation to act on those dreams, but little by little things went right. He got into the perfect college, became the leader of the Democratic Youth Group on his campus, went on to law school where he met Elaine, and the rest was history. He didn't question the professor in his undergrad selecting him for the internship that gained his entrance into law school any more than he questioned the campaign advisers who knocked on his door offering to help him run for city council.

He led a charmed life. Of course he would get the internship; he was the best choice. Of course someone from on high wanted him to run for elected office; he was the only one who could fix the problems that needed fixing. He remembered clearly the day he met Kevin Anderson—the young experimental medicine student still plugging away at his residency and his research. Kevin was always eager to fan the flame of Bud’s ego when Elaine wasn't.

Bud didn't question the anonymous donations to his campaign when he ran for city council and he certainly didn't question them when he ran for congress. Elaine loved the spotlight, loved the song and dance of politics and the people loved Bud. What more could he ask for? He was on the forefront of everything that mattered. Kevin even brought him into the lab he worked in, despite their strict policies, to show Bud the little jelly fish he had bobbing away in a tank. "The key to eternal life,” Kevin said with pride.

Kevin Anderson introduced Bud to Senator Stern--one of the lab's main donors. Senator Stern was the one who insisted that Bud should run for president. Stern was always so supportive, and always so happy to swap stories about the beautiful women he took home while his wife was away. 

Honestly, that was what made Bud trust him. It seemed genuine and human to have such a deep flaw. It was a flaw Bud himself shared, one that ate at him while he pressed his lips to another woman’s mouth and thought of Elaine.

It was the night after he was sworn into congress that everything became clear. Senator Stern asked for a privet meeting, congratulations between friends, mentor and mentee even. Bud didn't question it, why would he? He didn't question the young, bald man in the crisp black suit and glasses that accompanied Stern into his new DC office until the man gave a calm nod of acknowledgment, eyes sharp, and said, “Hail HYDRA.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Bud asked. He smiled and cast Stern a bemused look. What a friend you have there, the look said, what a joker.

Stern smiled back. “Hail HYDRA,” he echoed even as he crossed the room to clap Bud on the shoulder. “It took a lot of effort to get here, but it's all about to pay off.”

“Is this some sort of a joke?” Bud asked. He permitted Stern to shake his hand, strengthening the grip of their clasped palms on instinct rather than intent.

The bespectacled young man shook his head. “I assure you, it’s not a joke.” He couldn't be much older than nineteen, maybe twenty. Bud had a vague recollection of Stern acquiring a new assistant but even for coffee runs, the kid looked wet behind the ears. 

“You realized that what you’re talking about amounts to the boogiemen of WWII, right? You’re talking about an organization that was wiped out with the Nazis.”

Stern shook his head and the young man smiled thinly. “Don’t mind Jasper,” Stern said with a laugh. “Young men these days, always ready to butt heads over something.”

 

“HYDRA is alive and real, and they have a job for you,” Stern continued. “You and that lovely wife of yours. You’re going to go far, Bud.”

“What does Elaine have to do with any of this?” It wasn't the sort of thing she would find funny or even tasteful. She wasn't the history buff Bud liked to think himself, but she still knew enough to remember Captain America and the heroism that went into wiping HYDRA off the map all those years ago. Every child in America knew the basics of that story.

And Jasper smiled again, the thin, oddly passive smile that felt like nothing more than a threat despite the softness of it. “The word is, congratulations are in order. She’s pregnant.”

Something swooped and dropped out of the bottom of Bud’s stomach. No one but Bud, Elaine, and the one doctor they trusted not to run to the press—Kevin Anderson, now dabbling as a physician's assistant alongside his research—knew about that. Hell, Bud and Elaine only found out for sure this morning. There was no way for Stern or his intern to know about the baby yet.

“She’ll be having twins,” Stern said easily. He moved to look out the window and gave an appreciative whistle. “Nice view.”

“How do you know about the baby?” Bud demanded. He liked Stern, he did, but privacy was something he’d come to cherish after the campaign.

“Babies,” Jasper corrected.

Bud glowered at him. “See here, son, “he said, putting as much disdain and cold disinterest in his tone as possible, “this is a privet conversation. You should see yourself out.”

“Stay,” Stern said without looking away from the window. He muttered something under his breath and straightened his suit jacket. With another easy smile he turned to Bud and waved his hand like he was batting away a fly. “You should be proud, Bud. You and your wife have been chosen for an important task. HYDRA will reward you for this.”

“I—I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Bud said at last.

“Who do you think funded your campaigns? The people?” Jasper demanded. “You owe everything to us. You owe HYDRA this.”

And Stern laughed again. “Two for the price of one,” he said. “She’s pregnant with one now, but by the end of the night she’ll be having twins.”

He thought, for a short time, that there might have been some turning back after that moment. Maybe he could have walked away that night. He might have been able to return to Elaine, tell her everything that happened in the office, but somehow Bud couldn't. It wasn't because of the power that Stern insisted HYDRA would give him, although he would be lying if he said the idea of power never interested him. It was the things they knew, how deeply HYDRA had inserted itself into his life. The barista behind the counter at his local coffee shop whispered the greeting to him as he passed his morning cup across the counter. He banker flipped the collar of her shirt to reveal the little monster shaped pin hidden by her pearls. Even Kevin was part of their organization, and Elaine trusted Kevin in ways she trusted no one else with the health of her unborn child…children. HYDRA was everywhere. The saying was, cut off one head and two more would grow. There were already so many heads he couldn’t imagine more.

The most terrifying moment of his life was when the doctors handed Bud a newborn baby and he couldn't tell if it was his or HYDRA’s. Their mythical fist, their killing machine, was absolutely indistinguishable from his flesh and blood son. There was no way to telling the baby drooling on his arm was the impostor or if it was the one that cried against Elaine’s chest. 

If he couldn't tell, how would anyone else? No one would realize a monster was in their midst.

Kevin performed the DNA test and assured Bud that Douglas was his and Thomas James (Stern insisted on the middle name, said it was important and Bud wasn't interested in arguing with him at that point) was the monster. So, Bud resorted to calling the impostor TJ—better than calling him Thomas after Elaine’s father, like the name was intended to be.

And then TJ called him Daddy and something deep inside Bud broke.

How could he think TJ was a monster when TJ wanted nothing more than to be like Bud? 

Which brought him to this moment. He paced around his office and tried to ignore the man seated on the couch. The couch faced a small mahogany coffee table. The man leaned forward and lifted the delicate coffee cup to his lips. The man smiled at Bud and the expression reached his eyes. Somehow, Bud felt like that was one of the greatest betrayals. With Stern in jail and Kevin dead—he had no idea what happened to Jasper—this new representative of HYDRA’s had no qualms about speaking his mind. He didn’t call TJ by name, referred to Bud’s son as nothing but “the asset.”

The man introduced himself as Daniel Whitehall. He smiled and shrugged and leaned back in his seat. “Don’t worry so much,” Whitehall said between sips of coffee. “As long as they got him near enough to one of my operatives to hear the trigger phrase, you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

Bud grunted under his breath and said nothing. He knew the threat behind Whitehall’s words. Elaine and Douglas, Anne and Margaret, they were only alive by the grace of the Avengers. If TJ didn’t come to this office like he’d been conditioned to, he and the rest of Bud’s family would not survive the night.

“And when he arrives, then you’ll tell me what you plan on doing with my son?” Bud demanded. 

“Asset. Not son,” Whitehall corrected, cup paused half way to his lips. “The asset is no one’s child.”

Before Bud could think of a response—any response at all that wouldn’t make things worse—the sound of a key turning the lock in his door broke the rising tension. A wave of nausea hit him as TJ opened the door and closed it quietly behind him. There was something wrong with his eyes, something deadened and far away in his gaze. TJ slouched when he wasn’t in sessions with Kevin. TJ wasn’t slouching now. He stood straight and firm. Like he was a different person.

“Ah ha, there he is,” Whitehall said with a laugh and a clap of his hinds. He stood and shimmied around the couch to stand in front of TJ. Bud shifted to insert himself between TJ and Whitehall.

“It’s time you tell me what you’re planning now,” Bud said. He pressed his hand against TJ’s chest and tried to push him further back, tried to get more distance between his son and Whitehall but TJ didn’t so much as budge.

Whitehall tipped his head to the side and smiled. It still reached his eyes, crinkling them up at the corners. “This is on a need to know basis. You don’t need to know.”

Bud was not a brave man. He was—if he was entirely honest with himself—not a good man either. He’d made mistakes in his life, many, many mistakes. But he was a father. And TJ was his son.

“I need to know. I’ve done everything HYDRA has asked of me for years,” Bud said, and his voice didn’t shake. He was as firm as he’d ever been when sitting in the oval office. He stepped closer to Whitehall, using his own girth to herd him away from TJ. “What are you doing with my son?”

Whitehall smiled wider. “Asset. There is an obstacle to be removed.”

Bud gave a harsh laugh. “Asset? Asset? Who do you think you’re—“

Pain. Sharp and cold and hard, bloomed in the space between Bud’s spine and his ribs. He gasped as a shiver racked his body. His muscles contracted and something warm trickled out between his lips. Nausea struck again. Bud glanced down. There was blood on his shirt. Where did--?

He coughed. More beads of red dribbled down his lips and across his shirt. 

TJ stepped around him. His left hand was covered in blood. Where was all the blood coming from? Bud gasped, staggering forward as his head spun. Whitehall moved backwards with a smooth step. Bud dropped to his knees, gripping the back of the couch to stop himself from collapsing completely. There was something warm and wet soaking into his pants waistband. 

Bud turned, slumping against the side of the couch to look back at his son. TJ stared back at him like a child sleepwalking. There was nothing conscious behind his eyes. Whitehall smiled wider. 

Shadows were keeping in along the edges of Bud’s vision. His head was heavy, so, so heavy. Where was the phone? Elaine…He needed to call Elaine. She had to know about TJ.

“Come along,” Whitehall said, still smiling. “Wipe your hands and come along. You’ll be happy once you comply.”

Bud watched as Whitehall walked his son from the room and closed the door behind him.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoy the chapter! I thought it was going to be the second to last, but it looks like there will be a few more still.

Natasha knew they had to move quickly. Lines were forming in the sand and soon they would need to be crossed. She wasn’t like Clint or Steve, she didn’t care what had to be done in order to get the results needed, not if it was the difference between success and failure, but she knew there were lines. Important lines. Lines that some people shouldn’t cross. Steve was one of those people. Sam too, the more she got to know him, but Steve especially. It wasn’t that he was an innocent, because that would be a lie. The truth, simple and pure, was that Steve would feel anything he did in the deep down, bone bruising way that a good person always remembered the moment they erred.

The second TJ left the side room, Natasha knew what was going to happen. Nothing hurt Steve they way Bucky did, and now they knew TJ was Bucky hurt had to be coming. Hurting TJ would compromise Steve, would break him down the way Loki tried to do when he took Clint. Steve looked, for one wild moment, like he was going to kill the HYDRA agent locked in that room with them.

Such an act would destroy him. He’d never be able to look TJ in the eyes again knowing his love was enough to spill blood. Because it was love, however Steve wanted to dress it up.

Natasha was a liar, and a good one. She lied about lots of things, but she lied about love most of all.

“They sent him to Bud Hammond’s DC office,” she said as she left the interrogation room. Clint made Steve wait outside with Maria while Natasha collected the answers she needed. The HYDRA agent could now be packed off to the CIA or the FBI without a single new scratch on him. The marks Natasha left were only visible on the inside.

“We need to tell Ms. Barrish,” Steve said. He looked nauseated, lips pinched, face pale, hair damp with sweat. She couldn't tell if it was fear or anger. It didn't matter. Both were solid motivators and both would get HYDRA the reaction they wanted.

“Tell her on the way. Leave the others here, they’ll slow us down,” Natasha said as she marched back to the elevator. Maria nodded as she passed, a silent indicator that she knew what to do from here. It helped, having someone competent in charge. That was why she’d gotten along with Furry so well.

“Tony and Bruce coming with us?” Clint asked, falling into step beside her. 

“Tony at least. Sam as well. TJ knows him, and familiar faces are needed.” Natasha considered her options. She knew, from her own experience and from what Clint had been comfortable sharing so far, that familiarity is key. It’s what would clear up the fog trigger phrases produce. It was different for everyone, to one extent or another, but the basic premise was the same. Trigger phrases only work if the subject was defamiliarized from their surroundings and themselves enough to be susceptible to outside influence.

It's what they did to her.

All eyes were on them as they exited the elevator. It was clear that JARVIS had kept the upstairs abreast of what was going on below. TJ’s brother was pale and shaky, his sister-in-law crying silently while Elaine walked the room and Margaret Barrish watched. There was a heaviness to the air that Natasha associated with the moments before action, the seconds before someone snapped and did something stupid. It was the sort of heaviness she liked to conjure in her marks, it made it easier to get the job done when they got angry or over confident, when they allowed emotions to dictate their actions.

It was not, however, the sort of ambiance she wanted in her partners. Tony and Pepper whispered together in low tones near the window, but they stopped speaking as the elevator doors closed behind Natasha. Tony set a gentle hand on Pepper’s elbow, a signal that their conversation would continue latter –it was the same signal he used to use when “Natalie” worked for them not so long ago.

“The plane at LaGuardia is fueled and ready to go. JARVIS told us where TJ went,” Tony said. He gave Douglas Hammond and his wife a wide berth. It was for Douglas’s benefit more than anything else—he looked like he wanted to take a swing at everyone in the room. It would end poorly, especially of he tried to hit Tony and made Bruce any more agitated than he looked standing against the far wall with Sam.

“I’m coming with you this time,” Elaine said at once. Her eyes flashed. There was real anger in her pinched lips. Natasha could respect the anger, even if she did not approve of the outward display.

"We need you to come with us. Your credentials are the ones that will get us into the building without causing alarm," she said, cutting Elaine off before she could get out the next impassioned word. Elaine was justified in her anger and Natasha deserved it for not thinking far enough ahead to realize HYDRA might try something like trigger phrases, but they didn't have time to deal with blame.

"Sam," she said. He focused in at once, a soldier snapping to attention the same way Steve functioned. Bruce's eyes darted to Sam and then to Natasha herself. They were tight with stress and possibly anxiety. The presence of The Other Guy made it hard sometimes to determine what was purely Bruce and what was some strange combination of the two. Bruce would be upset about TJ. The Other Guy? He would just be annoyed that this commotion was now part of his day.

"Sam, I need you to stay here and wait for our feedback. It's possible TJ might break out of the conditioning and come back here," she said. It was also possible that Bruce would lose control and start turning green and nasty with the sort of agitation Douglas and Anne presented. Sam could defuse that situation before it began, and if TJ did show up again Sam was combat tested. Natasha could trust that he would know what to do on his own and what to do once Hill arrived as backup.

It would have been nice to have him along to deal with the emotional fallout TJ was bound to have—Sam was beyond a doubt the sanest of them all— but that was precisely why he was needed here now. Play to a person's strength.

"Tony, Mrs. Barrish, let’s go. I'll fill you in along the way." 

The ride to LaGuardia was tense and angry. Steve alternated between stony, furious silence, and crushing regret. He apologized three times within the span of two minutes to Elaine. Like it was his fault TJ was in the room to begin with. Like TJ hadn't jumped at the first real choice he'd been able to make in months, maybe years, if everything in the file was true. It sat wrong with Natasha, grated on something she couldn't quite name, but that aggravation wasn't worth investigating until all this was over.

The flight from LaGuardia to DC normally took forty-five minutes, but Tony got them there in under a half an hour from wheels up to wheels down. The only way TJ could have gotten there faster was if someone was waiting for him at the tower and ferreted him away the second he was outside. That was a distinct possibility, but it left a lot of things to chance. It assumed that TJ would be around to hear the trigger phrase, it assumed that no one would be able to stop him before he got away, and it assumed that security footage wouldn't reveal what happened outside the building. The fact that all of these things turned out to be true indicated two very disturbing things. The first, that HYDRA knew the tower well enough to be able to position a pickup in the slim blind spot between cameras. The second—and possibly most disturbing things still—that they knew TJ’s actions well enough to be able to predict his motions with this level of accuracy.

A car was waiting for them at the DC airport. Tony looked for a moment like he wanted to get behind the wheel, but Clint directed him succinctly to the back seat, between Clint himself and Steve. Elaine took the passenger seat wordlessly. If she knew that Natasha needed her there to bypass anyone who might try to stop them when they reached the office parking structure, she didn’t indicate as much. In fact, Elaine had said nothing since they reached the airport.

Natasha didn’t push her. She did not have children, she did not understand what a mother might be going through in a situation such as this, but she could appreciate the struggle from a clinical standpoint. It wasn't that she didn’t understand emotions, because she did, it was just difficult to interpret them without also assigning an exploitable weakness along with that emotion.

“Park next to the stares,” Elaine said as they pulled into the parking garage. “They lead right up to his office.”

Natasha did as instructed. One by one they spilled out of the car. Steve has his shield strapped to his arm before he was even fully upright, the curved edge coming close to smacking into Tony’s nose twice in the shuffle to exit the back seat. A vein ticked in his jaw, teeth clenched hard enough that Natasha felt a twinge of sympathy.

Her eyes slid to Clint. He nodded his head towards the stairwell and she returned the gesture, taking point so that Elaine was sandwiched between her and Steve. She understood. Clint would get Tony out of the way if someone started shooting. Clint could handle himself.

The feel of her knuckles driving into his skull so many months ago in the SHIELD helicarrier flashed through her mind. 

Natasha knew she was a liar.

Once inside the building, Elaine led the way down the dark hallways to the solid double doors of Bud's office. The place was dark and deserted, the way very few government buildings of this sort ever were no matter the time of day. Steve situated himself between Elaine and the door, shield up and stance braced for an attack. Natasha might not have enhanced hearing, but even she could detect the faint rustling of movement behind the door. Steve glanced at Natasha and then Clint and Tony, assured himself they were ready and then kicked the door open.

It flew back to smack against the wall and bounced almost all the way closed again. No one moved into the room. Elaine screamed.

Natasha shoved past Steve, frozen in the doorway, to sweep the room. She didn’t let herself acknowledge the body on the floor until she was sure there was no one lurking in a corner or a blind spot. Clint followed suit, bow drawn back tight and arrow notched.

“Clear,” he said, stepping around the couch.

“Clear,” Natasha echoed.

She turned back to Bud Hammond, bleeding out on the floor. Elaine knelt beside him, heedless of the blood staining her gray skirt. It wasn't a smart move—they would not be able to remove the blood from her clothing before they left the building. Someone would see it, recognize the stain for what it was, and alert authorities at once. Anonymity was no longer an option for Elaine.

“Bud? BUD!” Elaine’s hands fluttered around the gaping wound on Bud’s back. It was located just under the ribs and looked to angle upwards. Likely, it resulted in lung damage based on the angle. If Bud Hammond did not bleed out on the office floor he may well die from asphyxiation.

Bud gave a wet, gurgling cough and moaned. He shifted, turning his head to squint with one eye up at his wife. His face twitched. Natasha thought he might have been trying to smile, but she wasn't positive.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” Tony said. He shuffled quickly around the couch and the blood. He did not let his eyes linger on the blood or the injury. Tony was by no means a weak man, but he was not like Clint, or Steve, or Natasha herself. He saw wounds and glimpsed the human beneath them, they saw wounds and saw the world spinning on. 

"Bud, say something," Elaine commanded. Her voice did not tremble. For a civilian, Natasha had to respect the strength that took. 

A groan slipped from Bud's damp lips. He was going to die. It didn't matter how fast the ambulance got there, if blood was bubbling up when he spoke there was next to zero chance he was going to survive this. It was good aim. Whoever inflicted the wound knew how to do the maximum amount of damage without landing an insistently fatal blow. It was a wound meant to cause suffering, one Natasha could remember being taught back when she was young.

She turned towards Steve, assessing. How would he handle something like this? This was the man that hurt his friend, after all. How would a good man pushed to his limits react to a sight light this?

From the moment they found TJ curled up in the corner of his cell, Steve had begun to change. It wasn't necessarily a bad change. It was like a half dim light suddenly turned on so that it blinded. Where Steve was willing to let the world move him before, he was now ready to burn the world and salt the earth if it would help his friend. She knew depression when she saw it, knew what it meant to let the world leach what little color you had inside away from you. 

She'd been living in a world of gray when Clint first found her.

Steve's eyes caught her own. For a long moment he did nothing, just watched her watch him. Distantly, Natasha knew that if their roles were reversed, she would let Bud die. She might even kill him herself.

But Natasha knew she was not a good person. It was one of the few things she did not lie about.

Steve stepped forward and set his shield down. Carefully, he helped Elaine prop Bud up so that he could look at those gathered around him. There were tears in the corners of Bud's eyes. Natasha liked to think they were from guilt. She liked to think even people like Bud had a conscience, no matter how deep down it might be. 

"They took—him—they took," Bud gasped. He struggled, wheezing on his own blood. 

Elaine flinched at the sound. Tony shouted something into the phone that sounded like a threat on someone's livelihood if they didn't get an ambulance here in the next five minutes. Clink watched the windows, while Natasha watched the door and Steve.

He had his eyes closed, squeezed tight together like a child. I don't see it so it's not real. A deep breath pulled past his lips, and then Steve opened his eyes again. He looked down at Bud, at Elaine clutching at Bud's bloody fingers, and asked, "Who took him? Who took TJ?"

Bud's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. He convulsed in Elaine's arms, eyes fluttering. Elaine sobbed. "Whitehall," Bud gasped. "Whitehall—London."

Natasha stepped forward and dropped to one knee, well out of reach of the blood. "Whitehall? Who is that? Why did he take TJ?"

"I know that name," Tony said. The phone was slack in his grip and his eyes were wide. "He was in the files you dumped online. He's bad news. Really bad news."

Steve's shoulders scrunched like he was fending off a blow. Perhaps he was, even if Natasha couldn't actually see it. "They went to London? To the city? Do you have an address, any idea at all where he might be taking TJ?" 

Bud tried to nod and gave a hacking, shuttering cough instead. He cried, gazing up at Elaine, the literal dying man making peace with his demons. "I'm so sorry."

Elaine curled close, pressed her forehead to Bud's and forced herself to keep the tears at bay. "Help me save our son," she whispered.

"Whitehall," Bud said again, thickly. "London." He gestured with a shuttering hand towards his pants pocket. 

Natasha moved before anyone else could. She snatched the phone out of Bud's pants and opened the contacts list. There was no Whitehall on the list. 

"You're looking under the wrong name," Tony insisted when she said as much. "Look up Werner Reinhardt."

Steve stiffened beside Elaine, a sharp breath making its way through clenched teeth. "Reinhardt. Werner Reinhardt? Are you sure?" he demanded, and he looked as pale as Tony now.

"What, you know the guy?" Clint asked, still watching out the window.

Steve nodded. He was caught between snarling and sobbing, Natasha could see the anger and the fear warring within him. "Werner Reinhardt worked with the Red Skull. He and Zola were both trying to create the perfect human being for the Red Skull's army."

"Zola, as in the guy that experimented on Bucky Barnes back in the day?" Clint echoed. It was a mark of how good he was that the surprise he felt did not have him turning away from the window.

Steve nodded. He squeezed his eyes closed again and pulled at his hair. The tips were pink with blood from his fingers. "Reinhardt used to rip people apart trying to 'make them special.' He was a monster. How could he possibly still be alive?" he whispered. 

Elaine sobbed harder, she raged, slammed her find into the floor over and over again rather than into Bud and screamed, "How could you do this to us? How could you hurt us like this? Your family? Your baby? Your son?"

And Bud sobbed along with her.

Natasha stood. She passed Bud's phone to Tony as the first faint sounds of a siren began to make its way into the room. "Get us to this address," she said as she stepped away from the chaos on the floor. 

In truth, Natasha was a liar, and a good one. She lied about lots of things, but she lied about love most of all. Love was not for children. Love destroyed people. Love tore down civilizations. Love was dangerous, and love was going to get them all killed if someone didn't lock it away, didn't push it down far enough to do what needed to be done. HYDRA understood that, and they knew how to weaponize something so powerful.

If TJ died they would never have to lay a finger on Steve. He would break himself against HYDRA's cruelty all on his own.

"Steve, Tony, Clint, we need to get out of here if we have any hope of reaching TJ and Whitehall before they change locations," she said, marching towards the door. She stopped and turned back to Elaine. Even with tears in her eyes and the man she loved dying in her arms, Elaine did not turn away from Natasha's gaze.

"We need to leave you here. You’ll slow us down and someone needs to be here when the ambulance arrives."

"Go. Get my son back," Elaine said without a second of hesitation.

Natasha nodded. "I'll have Maria Hill send someone in the area to act as your guard until we return. Every one of her staff members has been vetted and can be trusted." She'd sent the request as soon as she stood up—a form response that made no sense to anyone but Hill and therefore she could trust no one would intercept it. Natasha didn't want to leave Elaine unprotected, but if they wanted TJ back alive, they had to move quickly.

Elaine nodded. Bud watched Natasha with slow, dazed eyes. "Help him," he slurred. And Natasha nodded.

As they raced down the hall, the echo of the ambulance siren bouncing along the walls, Natasha hit another number. The call range twice before a confused, "Hello? Who is this?"

"Jane," Natasha said, "pass the phone to Thor. The Avengers need him."


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed this time, so sorry for any errors! Please feel free to let me know if you spot one. 
> 
> Sorry for the long pause between chapters! We're so close to the end it's not even funny...Mostly because things are going to get bad for everyone.

Jane shifted the instrument in her hand once more and huffed a strand of hair away from her face. The weather was damp and her hair, while mostly tied back, had found a way to extract itself from the tight band she'd bound it with. Despite the annoyance the strands in her face must be causing, she refused to stop her work, shifting the long metal instrument once more. She bit her lip and squinted one eye, checking the slope of the setting sun. Thor considered reaching out and brushing the hair away from her face, but Jane would get flustered if he did such a thing.

She tended to get flustered any time he touched her, which was both thrilling and endearing in a way he couldn't quite put a name to. It made his chest swell with pride and love and gratitude that this brilliant Midgard women, this mind on the brink of discovery always, found him worthy of the same fascination she paid to the stars. It was humbling and truly magnificent. Jane was humbling and magnificent. She was smarter than he, but the added boon of Asgard’s advancements sometimes made that hard for Midgardians to recognize.

Darcy reached out and pushed the strand of hair away from Jane’s face with a loud snap of her gum. Jane hummed in acknowledgment and thanks but did not pause her actions. The transmitter was meant to see some distant part of the galaxy, because something in her recordings was reading infinitesimally different now that they had before. Darcy glanced over Jane’s shoulder and winked a Thor to mouth, “you're welcome” at him.

Thor returned the grin. He quite liked Darcy, because Darcy was intelligent in her own way and because Darcy loved Jane as Thor love Lady Sif and the Warriors Three. Darcy knew that Jane would sometimes forget to eat if not reminded during her research to take breaks, and Darcy knew that Thor’s touch would have derailed Jane’s concentration, which she would have been upset at herself for allowing later.

But the shrill ring of the cellular phone was still quite persistent. It had rung three times already and Thor knew that a fourth and fifth ring would signal the end of the call, but he also knew it was considered rude on Midgard to ignore the ringing. Midgardians sent little, concentrated letters to each other through the cellular phone and Darcy told him that only the most pressing of events warranted an actual call.

“Like, if evil alien elves are showing up at my door again, you can call me, but otherwise go for the text,” she said sagely. She liked to tell Thor things about Midgard, but she never did it in a condescending way and most of her information was more practical for day-to-day interactions that Jane’s astrophysics or Tony’s robotics.

“Lady Jane,” Thor said with a poorly concealed laugh.

Jane grunted as she shoved the transmitter into the dirt and reached for her back pocket blindly. It took her three tries to pull the cellular phone free and by that time the rings numbered closer to seven or eight, but there had been no break in the sound so the call had not come through a second time.

“Yes?” Jane asked, tucking the phone between her shoulder and her cheek to reach for her laptop. The transmitter was connected to the laptop by a thick cord. Already there were numbers scrolling across her screen.

“I’m sorry, what?” she asked, her hands freezing above the keys. Her face scrunched up in confusion. Wordlessly she pulled the phone away and held it out to Thor.

“It’s for you.”

Thor took it from her, one brow raised. He did not have a cellular phone. He did not get calls. For someone to search out Jane’s number in order to contact him did not bode well. He held the phone up gingerly to his ear, aware of the delicate nature of Midgard technology, and said, “ Who seeks my council?”

“Thor, it’s Natasha. We have a problem and we need your help.” Natasha Romanoff. The Black widow. A worthy ally and a trusted friend, but still not someone that should have Jane’s number. Natasha understood the intricacies of battle and the importance of protecting those who were not meant to see the field.

For her to call Jane meant something bad had happened or would happen soon. “Tell me, friend, what is wrong?”

Natasha was silent for a short moment. If he did not know her better, Thor would have said she was collecting her words, but Natasha was like Loki. She did not have a shortage of words when she needed them. It was a good comparison, no matter that he would never say as much allowed.

“I’m sending a picture to Jane’s phone. Someone’s been kidnapped and we need to get them back as soon as possible. As safe as possible. Our information says the kidnappers have taken him to a base not far from where you are now,” she said quickly. There was no inflection to her voice. 

“Who is this someone that you call with such concern?” he asked. Jane had abandoned her machine in favor of watching him closely and Darcy had not snapped her gum since the phone was answered.

Natasha hesitated again. Thor felt something very like dread begin to creep into his stomach. “His name is TJ Hammond. Of Bucky Barnes. Depends on who you ask. He’s Steve’s friend. A friend he thought died back in the war and a friend that might wish he were dead soon if we don't get to him in time,” she said at last.

The dread bloomed into a deep anger on Steve Roger’s behalf and on the behalf TJ Hammond- Bucky Barnes. He knew of Steve’s long sleep, like the Odin sleep but devastating for a mortal, for someone who had already lost so much to awake to more despair. That someone would harm a warrior as old as any friend that fought with the Captain was simply barbaric.

“I will find TJ Hammond- Bucky Barnes and I will return him to Captain Rogers unharmed. Of this you have my sworn oath,” he said. He wished she could see the fist he brought to his chest to solidify the oath but trusted that she understood his sincerity regardless.

“Thank you. We're on our way as well but—“ she hissed something under her breath that sounded like a curse but was too garbled to make out. “I have to go. I've sent the picture and the coordinates to the base. But Thor,” she added, intensity creeping into her voice at last. The fire of a true warrior chased away the clinical recounting of information to reveal the hard as flint tone in which she said, “The people who took him are HYDRA. They hurt him. Badly.He might be afraid of you, or he might not remember who he is. If he dies this will be an international incident because Steve will murder someone."

“I understand. I will find this man and I will bring him home safely,” he said with as much solemn earnestness as he could inject into his voice over the cellular phone.

“Thank you.” The soft click of the connection ending as all the warning Thor had before Natasha was gone. His experience with the Midgardian warrior was far less numerous than his experience with Jane of Darcy, but he knew Natasha well enough from their time together to realize that thanks did not come easily to her. She was, again, like his brother in this way. The only difference was that he trusted there was little manipulation in her word when, before his death, Loki spoke in nothing but riddles.

For Natasha to worry about Steve Rogers causing an international incident told Thor all he needed to know about TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes’ character. A shield brother from the war, captured in the twilight of his human life, subjected to the evils of the organization Steve Rogers fought so hard against. TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes was doubtless a man of valor and strength.

The cellular phone beeped as a message came through. Jane reached out and took the phone to swipe her fingers across the screen and unlock the text. Her eyes widened and, behind her, Darcy arched a brow in quizzical interest.

“Why are you having pictures of TJ Hammond send to Jane’s phone?” she asked with another pop of her gum.

Thor walked around them to look at the screen over Jane’s shoulder. The man in the image was not the seasoned warrior he had expected to see. Instead, he looked young, barely out of boyhood and wide eyed. He was staring out of the camera with a crooked smile that spoke of a false bashfulness, like he thought the expression would make him more appealing to whoever looked at it. Thor was very good at recognizing false bashfulness because he used the same expression to get out of trouble as a child whenever he and Loki got into it. But the look did its job because Thor could see right away how this man would have attracted Captain Steve Rogers.

Another ping rang out from the phone and Jane swiped her finger across the screen to open the second text message. Her nose scrunched as she saw the numbers and letters scroll across her screen. Thor knew it was an address, but he was unsure how this information was meant to help him reach TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes. Both Jane and Darcy strove to teach him the finer art of address reading, but the Midgard system was so overly complicated—why did they not just rely on special placement?—that he often did not read the information correctly.

“Why did you get sent the address to the largest bio-technical research lab in Great Britten?” Jane asked. Her eyes darted up from the screen. “That phone call didn't sound like a happy one.”

“Indeed, it was not. Steve Roger’s shield brother has been kidnapped. I am tasked with aiding in his rescue,” Thor admitted. He scowled down at the address on the phone, willing it to transmute itself into a more comprehensible form.

“Shield brother? As in, a guy he fought alongside?” Darcy asked. When he nodded she tipped her head to the side. “How? TJ Hammond is, like, thirty years old. There are pictures of him as a kid all over the place. His dad was the president of the united states. To be a shield brother he would have had to fight in World War two.”

Thor nodded. “Yes. Natasha said he did.”

Darcy gasped and chocked on the gum in her mouth. Jane rushed to pat her on the back as she coughed and waved her hands rapidly. He reached out to pat as well, hoping to help dislodge the gum without having to perform the more complicated maneuvers he’d used in the past when others ate too rapidly in fear it might hurt her. But Darcy seemed to have swallowed the gum because she tipped her head back and crowed, “I KNEW it. I knew he looked like Bucky Barnes! Hah! Take that eight grade history teacher!”

“So, TJ Hammond is someone the same man that fell of a train and died in World War two?” Jane said. She sounded dazed, but only for a second. She shook her head and threw off the disbelief to square her shoulders and pocket the phone. “Alright, lets pack up and hit the road.”

Pack up? Did she mean to abandon her research in order to fight this fight? Again, the swelling of pride surged up in Thor. Jane was willing to help a man she did not know simply because Thor wished it, simply because he was in danger and needed help. She'd done as much for him when he first arrived in Midgard. But this was different. This was dangerous and, unlike the incidents that brought her to Asgard, the danger here was avoidable. She and Darcy had no reason to get involved.

“Stay. Collect your research. This is work you should not risk yourselves with,” he said. Darcy and Jane were already folding up the computer and transmitter. It took Jane two hard tugs to get it up out of the damp ground the force of her pull nearly upended her. A swift hand on the small of her back kept her from falling outright and brought with it the warmth of her touch against his skin.

She straightened up with a head nod of thanks but said just as firmly, “Did you know how to read the address you were sent?”

Thor hesitated.

“Nope. So you need us,” Darcy declared. She shoved the laptop into a brightly colored back and marched to the large white van they used to drive this far out into the hill surrounding London. She pulled the passenger side door open and tossed the equipment inside far more gently than Jane, who set the transmitter down in the trunk of the van and didn’t realize the long, dirt covered spike at the end was still sticking out when she moved to close the door.

Thor adjusted the device and shut the rear door carefully. He’d broken a window once by slamming the door without intending to. Both Jane and Darcy had been amused until they had to pay to fix the glass and then they spoke sadly of the need for Ramen Noodles.

“This is a dangerous mission, Lady Jane, Lady Darcy. You will not be safe should you come with me,” he insisted.

But Jane was already climbing into the driver’s seat and passing her phone to Darcy. Like a well-practiced ritual, Darcy pulled the address up once more, moved her hand in a strangely lingering way across the phone screen and then pulled her fingers away. A robotic voice began to instruct them on where best to turn despite the fact that the car was not yet running.

“Don’t start up with the Lady This or Lady That thing, buddy,” Darcy said with a smirk. “You only use the lady when you're trying to be serious now and we're already in serious mode.”

Thor slipped into the back seat. They swapped spots sometimes and sometimes they did not. He enjoyed everything but driving the vehicles they used, as he was not a “conscientious driver.” Pulse, there was more room in the back of the vehicle then there was in the front.

“I do not want either of you to be hurt,” he said as the engine sputtered to life below him.

Jane twisted in her seat and smiled at him. It was a very sweet smile. “We’ll leave the fighting to you. We're just going to get you to the place and let you do your thing.”

And that would have been a good plan, had they stuck to it. Instead, Jane drove the van back along the highway and to London City proper. They navigated through the streets until the directions lead them to a towering, impressive building. They pulled into the underground parking garage and at once Thor began to feel uneasy. This was a confined space that he had no knowledge of, anyone could be lurking in an unseen corner waiting to attack and he would have to break through the walls in order to get Jane and Darcy to safety now. They could not be inconspicuous if he was going to break through a wall. Even the long wool coat that Jane and Darcy helped him pick out would be unable to mask him as an average Midgardian, never mind that the coat could hid Mjolnir strapped to his belt.

They sat form a moment in the dimly lit garage before Jane and Darcy both turned to look back at him. “I have an idea,” Jane said.

“I suspect the idea is not for either of you to remain where it is safe.”

Jane waved the concern away and Darcy shook her head. “I can approach them like I’m inquiring about a job—I’m a traveling scientist and their an evil organization of doom, they must do some recruiting—and you can say you’re looking for the bathroom.”

Thor frowned. “That is only going to make this organization know that you exist. I do not think anyone would believe that I am simply looking for the bathing room.”

“And that right there, ‘bathing room,’ is why you should let us do the talking while you do the sleuthing,” Darcy interjected with a point of her finger. “No one says ‘bathing room’ but lots of people ask for a place to pee.”

He could see the wisdom in their plan, but that did not mean that he liked the idea of letting either out of his sight while in such dangerous territory. But the truth of the matter was that Thor was not a man made for stealth. He did not sneak, he did not blend in. Jane and Darcy were of this world and familiar with this land. He trusted that Jane could keep someone engages in a conversation about her scientific pursuits that would lose them in seconds if given the opportunity and he knew that Darcy was very skilled at leading one down intellectual tangents without their noticing. They could keep a gate guard busy for a few minutes, long enough for him to find TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes and get them all out of the building.

“If there is any sign of danger, you must both promise me that you will get yourselves to safety.” It was the only way he could rationalize letting either of them leave this car. Jane nodded. Darcy stuck her thumbs up wish Thor knew mean she too agreed.

He let them lead the way out of the garage and up an elevator. The stepped out into a brightly lit lobby. The while building had clean lines and hyper functional designs that looked alien to Thor. There was no character in the minimalist white chair or the fake potted tree, or the chrome desk with the man seated behind it. Behind the man and the desk was another elevator, presumably the elevator needed to access any other level of the building. The guard looked up from his newspaper as they walked forward but he lacked the sharp eyes observance that made Heimdall so intimidating.

“Can I help you?” the man asked.

Jane smiled. The man’s eyes traveled down to her lips and then over the Darcy. The stare lingered below her neck for an inappropriate amount of time, but Darcy stepped on Thor’s foot when he made a displeased sound. She obviously did not enjoy the man’s attention but she just as obviously intended to use the impropriety against him as she draped her elbows on the desk and arched her back to make eye contact with the man.

“We're researchers from a university back in the United States, and I've heard so much about this company that I just couldn't help myself. I know bio-technical innovations are the main interests of the departments here, but I wanted to speak to someone about the possibility of branching out. Maybe partnering with the university I represent to talk about mutually beneficial investigative pursuits,” Jane said in a rush.

The man opened and closed his mouth like a fish, clearly flustered by the fast speech. Before he could answer Darcy reached out and tapped a finger against his name tag. “Bob. Is Bob short for something?

“What?” the man asked, blinking rapidly at a point other than her face.

“Bathroom?” Thor asked in a low growl.

The man did not look away from Darcy when he pointed to a small hallway to the right of his desk. Thor nodded and moved at once for the hallway. He caught Jane’s eye before the angle of the wall hid her from view. She looked focused and determined, like she did when a project had her full attention. 

They would be fine. Jane and Darcy were resourceful. It was his task now to find a way from the bathroom up to the other floors. Thor walked slowly, to take in the full hallway. There were two doors, one that had the little generic forms that indicated one could use the room beyond to relieve themselves and one that had EXIT written above it in large glowing letters. He frowned at the second door for far longer than one should when they are trying to be inconspicuous but he couldn't help it. What fool would design a building with a guard at the front entrance only to offer another route with the back entrance? Surely he would not have permitted Thor to walk past him so easily if this door granted access to the uppermost floors.

And yet, when he pushed the door open, the stairs leading upward proved that the guard had done just that. Thor took them three at a time, checking every door he came to as he ascended. They were unlocked and the spaces beyond unimpressive until he reached the eleventh floor. The door to this door was locked. He crushed the knob in his grip and pushed until the mechanism in the wall gave.

The floor was quiet. Thor was not well versed in the working of professional spaces but he had been to Tony Stark’s tower since his return to Midgard and he knew what a business was not. It was not quite. There should be the low hum of living, breathing individuals moving about the space. There should be the sound of telephones ringing, or the patter of feet along the floor.

Instead there was an echoing silence that swallowed even his own steps. Downstairs had not been particularly welcoming but the stark concrete walls of the hallway and the harsh white lights along the ceiling seemed to actively deter his continued presence. He ignored the uneasy feeling this space inspired in his gut and continued on until he found another doorway. It was not locked and it lead into a space that looked something like a cross between the robotics lab in Tony Stark’s building and some form of a healing space. He recognized some of the ancient—sophisticated, surely to Midgardians—medical equipment in the room from his own brief time in the hospital during his first trip to Midgard, but much of the equipment was a mystery to him.

The lab was deserted, but soft vibrating hums from the electronic equipment could be heard. He reached out and picked up the pen resting on a pad of paper set on one of the less cluttered desks. The shaft of the pen was cold, but when he lifted the page light still glittered off the ink not yet fully dried. People had been in this room recently. The noted on the paper gave no insight to where they may have gone and did not further his own mission as there was nothing but numbers written along the page in neat columns. They recorded something, but what that something was, Thor could not tell.

He set the pad down again and ventured deeper into the lab. The far wall was made of glass. As he drew closer it became clear that he glass was meant to serve as an observation point for the room beyond. Thor peered through the glass.

And immediately wished he hadn't.

In the room beyond there was a table. Strapped to the table was a body. It was charred to the point of nonrecognition. Nothing around the body looked burnt, not the table it was lying on or the straps around its limbs. The body was contorted, spin arched and frozen in a gesture that spoke of pain and suffering. 

Thor pressed his lips into a grim line to keep the grown at bay and bowed his head. This poor creature did not deserve this death, very little in the universe truly did. He held for a moment of silent respect before finding the door and entering the room.

Carefully, he walked to the gristly figure. the air itself felt charged. Some distant part of his mind seemed to recognize the charge along his skin, but Thor could not place it. Not until he was directly before the figure did he realize it was not burnt. It was stone. Transformed.

And suddenly the charge along his skin made perfect sense. The Kree War, that ancient and most terrible conflict, had touched Midgard many years ago. It appeared to have touched Midgard again, because this looked to be the results of one of their transformation crystals gone bad. The figure on the table had been tall while still alive, at least as tall as Thor himself, so he hoped it was not TJ Hammond-Bucky Barns who met such a terrible fate, but he could not be sure. 

"Heimdall," he said allowed, trusting that all seeing eyes could find him now, "do not tell my father of this. Lady Sif should investigate. She has a far more gentle hand and knows Midgard as well as I."

There was no reply, but he had not expected one. There was also no Kree crystal and that was more upsetting than the silence. An organization like HYDRA should not have access to weapons from beyond their understanding. The potential for destruction was just too great.

"Come out of there place. Hands where they can be seen" a voice said from a speaker out of sight. Thor stiffened, eyes on the burnt form in front of him.

He turned slowly. There was no one in the at the window and there was no one in the lab. Hand hovering over the grip of Mjolnr, Thor stepped out into the hallway. A man stood there. He had white hair and glasses. He was dressed in a well cut suit and smiled when Thor came to a stop before him. Even if Natasha had not told him HYDRA was involved, Thor would have been suspicious of this man. There was something inherently off about the quality of his smile, something intended to be amiable but instead became sinister.

Behind the man was TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes. He was pale and wain, with brick red blood stains on his hands and the edge of his sleave. His eyes were unfocused, staring past Thor as if there was no one there at all. As if, in fact, he was not there at all.

TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes had a gun in his hands. That gun was pointed at Jane and at Darcy. 

"Thor. God of thunder. Mighty warrior come to earth to save us from ourselves," the man in the suit said. His lips curled in up at the corners in a crooked smile. "Look at you. Look at you."

Neither Jane nor Darcy looked injured, but both were clearly afraid. Jane had her arm around Darcy's waist and held her close as Darcy chewed her lip and worked visibly to remain calm. Jane's wide eyes found Thor's and then darted back to TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes. She could tell there was something wrong with the young warrior as well.

"Let them go and I shall overlook the vast anger your transgressions inspire," Thor growled. 

The man in the suit shrugged. He spun on his heel and walked around Jane and Darcy. They watched him come closer and they watched him circle around to pat TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes on the shoulder. TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes gave no indication that he felt the touch.

"You're not here to take in the sights," the man in the suit said. He pat his fingers on TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes' shoulder and then dug his fingers deep into the young man's shoulder. The touch got no response. "Why are you here?"

Thor glowered. The man smile. "I would take the young man back with me as well." Thor said it because it was true and because Jane was mouthing the word "asleep" over and over again. 

The man in the suit laughed. "You want to take away my toy soldier? My perfect toy soldier?" the man shook his head. "You see, we are all striving to become our perfect selves, any my toy soldier? He's perfect no. But all of you?" The man reached out and stroked a lock of Jane's hair. She flinched. Darcy slapped his hands away with a sharp curse.

The man laughed. He pat Darcy on the head and then stepped away. "I'm afraid my time it not my own. But my little soldier will keep you all company while I am away."

"Know that if you harm any of them, I will kill you myself," Thor growld. He wanted to attack, to grab Jane and Darcy and TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes and run with them all away from this building and the smiling man's face. But he understood guns and he understood his own limitations. He was fast, but not faster than a bullet and he would not risk Jane or Darcy by trying his luck now.

"My name is Daniel Whitehall. Look me up some time. When you become who you are meant to be," the man in the suit said as he disappeared down the hall.

Until the sound of a distant door closing echoed down the hallway, no one moved. There was the chance that TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes was play acting for Daniel Whitehall, that he did not intend to harm anyone and could be reasoned with, but the chance was slim. Thor knew this even before he said,"friend, let us help you. Steve Rogers sent us."

But TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes did not respond. He did not look at Thor. He moved as one in a deep sleep, eyes half lidded and unfocused as he lifted his arms and the gun in his hand to point it squarely at Jane's back. A pain, terrible and sharp, shot through Thor at the sight. His hand shot to his hammer, a shout rising to his lips, but he knew. He already knew.

There was no way to reason with a man asleep.

TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes was deep, deep asleep.

The gunshot echoed through the hallway.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is super short, but I feel bad that you have all been made to wait for more for so long. Another chapter will be up as soon as I can get it out. 
> 
> Also, there is a warning for this chapter. I have it at the end in the chapter notes in case anyone wants to check that and be sure this there isn't anything they'd rather skip over in this section.

Darcy was many thing—stylish, sensible, totally hot, thank you very much—but she was not a fighter. She did not do confrontation. She did non-confrontation or the kind of confrontation that manifested itself in subtly judgmental eyes rolls and elaborate, exaggerates sighs. She did not, say, know how to throw a punch. She did not know how to knock an armed weapon out of someone’s hands. In the heat of the moment, however, none of that mattered.

She drove her elbow into the fleshy bit of TJ Hammond’s neck like it was her day job. He jerked backwards to avoid the blow in a smooth way that would have been dead sexy if not for the fact that he was trying to make her best friend and employer dead as well. As he stepped back Jane ducked down, throwing herself flat to the floor while Thor swung his hand forward with all the hammer’s weight behind it.

The gun went off with an earsplitting bang followed by a ringing silence. Like a slow motion replay Darcy watched as the hammer sailed past her face. Something stung her shoulder and she thought maybe it was the built but maybe it wasn't because it only stung. Bullets should hurt more than a bee sting. Jane was picking herself up of the floor and Thor was hovering over her but Darcy kind of wanted to laugh because there were men spilling out of rooms with guns. 

When Whitehall walked them into the elevator and out onto this floor to say his little speech there hadn't been anyone around at all. The whole building looked deserted and dead in a way that made Darcy almost as frightened as the empty look on TJ Hammond’s face. Now there were so many armed security personnel slipping out of rooms around them that it made her head spin. 

Or maybe her head was spinning because of the blood. Because there was blood. Her blood. Leaking in a sluggish-don't-mind-me-I'm-just-blood kind of way. Huh. That couldn't be good.

“Darcy!” Jane shouted. She scrambled back across the floor on her hands and knees to help Darcy sit up. It looked significantly less cool that TJ, who rose from the floor where he'd dodged the hammer with a twist and a flip. What a jerk.

“I think I got hit. Like, I think he hit me. With a bullet. I think I got shot.” Darcy could feel her lips moving, could hear her own voice speaking, but it all seemed very far away. 

And then there was a solid mass of Thor on one side of her, squashing Jane into her other side as he pulled them close with one large arm. Because his arm was huge and could fit around both of them. He pulled Jane and Darcy up, Jane’s arms around Darcy as a brace against the movement because it suddenly hurt to move. It hurt a lot. So much so that Darcy bit her lip and sucked in a sharp breath through her nose to stop the startled scream from coming out.

Thor’s arm extended to catch the hammer. Every single gun in every single hand rose to point at him. At Jane. At Darcy.

“I'm not voting for anyone in your family ever again,” Darcy grit through clenched teeth at TJ, who gave no indication that he had any idea that he heard her.

Jane’s hand pressed down on the stinging in her shoulder and woke it to a burning ache. Darcy cursed again.

“If you attack me now, I will not hold back. Midgardian or not, you have injured my friend,” Thor said. His voice rumbled all through his chest and it would have been really nice under literally any other circumstance.

TJ did nothing. The soldiers around him took aim. Jane tucked her head in close to Darcy, her eyes wide and bright beneath the hair now standing on end. Lightning was coming.

Darcy shut her eyes. She could feel herself getting spun around as Thor directed the blast towards the wall rather than the men gathered around him. She heard the explosion of rubble that resulted and had the presence of mind to hope that there was no one walking on the sidewalk near this building because a couple hundred pounds of mythological god and pissed off ladies were about to fall right on top of their heads otherwise.

Her stomach flipped and hid up under her ribs as they fell. Darcy knew she wasn't screaming because her teeth were clenched too tightly for a scream to get out still but she also knew there was a reason she'd never asked Thor to take her flying. They hit the ground way faster than she thought they should and with a jolt that rattled her injured shoulder again but did not kill her or Jane, so that was a win-win.

“We need to get out of here and get Darcy to a doctor,” Jane said at once. She even came off as mostly calm. It was super impressive because Darcy thought she might throw up but that could be from blood loss more than anything else. 

Thor nodded. He set them both back on their feet with excruciating care, brows pinched up as his eyes flit across Darcy’s shoulder. He ran his fingers over the spot where her very nice t-shirt that she'd just washed yesterday was now a rust colored red. 

“I think—“ and then he was scooping Darcy and Jane back up to spin them around and out of the line of bullets that peppered the ground around them.

“Go! Get far from here. Our enemies are numerous and TJ Hammond knows not what he does,” Thor said. He spread his hands wide, trying to cover Jane and Darcy as much as possible. 

Jane slipped her arm around Darcy’s waist and then the sidewalk exploded behind Thor. From behind the safety of his arm Darcy watched as the armed soldiers spilt out of every door, every window, like ants swarming.

They shot their guns as they rushed to face Thor, but they weren't aiming for him. Or Jane. Or Darcy. They weren't aiming for anyone or anything, they were just shooting. Causing panic. People were screaming and running for cover. And then it hit Darcy, what was going on here, why she and Jane hadn’t been killed the second that Whitehall guy figured out who they were and who they were there with.

HYDRA kidnapped the son of two of the most powerful people in the world, brought him to a city only just beginning to recover from an alien attack, and then let the dogs off the leash. This was about chaos, about destruction. They wanted as many people as hurt as possible. They wanted as much destruction as possible, and they wanted Thor and TJ Hammond to be the face of that destruction.

Wind whipped up, pushing Darcy sideways so that her feet slid across the concrete and she smacked her elbow hard into Jane’s side. Thor twisted, hovering over them both like a wild, molting eagle or something, to find the source of the wind. Something red went zipping past with the echo of a jet engine taking off. The soldiers scattered.

Captain America and Black Widow dropped to the ground on either side of Thor’s ample arms. Like really dangerous angles that made Darcy feel confusing things underneath the pain in her shoulder. She let her head tip to the side, mouth opening in a slight “oh” of astonishment when she saw the airplane-helicopter-thing hovering there between the HYDRA building and everything else.

“Where’s Bucky?” Captain America demanded and Darcy wanted to ask who the hell Bucky was but then TJ Hammond threw a grenade at them.

~~

Clint reacted before Steve even realized there was a danger. His voice chirped over the intercom in Steve’s ear and the instructions to “duck, this is going to be toasty!” hadn't even fully registered before the Quinjet’s guns were blasting the grenade out of the sky.

It exploded in a shower of deafening silence and a concussive blast that would have knocked Steve and Natasha off their feet if not for Thor’s solid bulk to brace themselves against. That was when Steve realized that Jane Foster and her assistant whose name he was forgetting where there, shielded behind Thor’s arms. Jane’s assistant was hurt—a flesh wound, looked like a built grazed across her right shoulder—but for someone unaccustomed to battle it likely hurt badly and was bleeding quite a bit.

“Clint, we have civilians down here,” he said as he straightened up and turned.

Buc—TJ was there, surrounded by armed HYDRA agents. Agents who seemed far more interested in causing general panic than trying to shoot Steve or Natasha. Generally, even with Iron Man flying all around them and blowing things up, someone would have tried to take a pot shot by now. Instead all the hostility was directed at the crowd around the build running for safety.

“We’re in the middle of downtown London, Cap. Lots of civilians,” Clint replied. He sounded grim. “I can cover as much of their retreat as possible, but if I start shooting these big guns up here while you’re all down there, someone if going to get shot.”

And that someone could be TJ. He had a Beretta M9 griped in his hand like he knew how to use it but Elaine and Douglas both insisted TJ had never held a gun in his life. They spoke on the flight out here. Natasha insisted they needed to know what they might be up against inside TJ’s head. But, it was Bucky’s head too, and Bucky could pick up any gun and know how to shoot it like he knew how to breathe. And that blank space between the man in front of him being Bucky and becoming TJ—the Winter Soldier space—none of them knew what the Winter Soldier could do.

“Land the plane somewhere and take them out from the rooftops. Tony, we need to get a perimeter set up.” Steve turned to Thor, who had not moved from his protective stance in front of Jane and her assistant. “Get them to safety, and then I need you covering Nat. We want HYDRA down for the count with a few fatalities as possible.”

Thor nodded and wasted no more time shepherding both women out of the fray. When Steve turned back to Natasha she was ready. Her lips quirked up into a grim smile and she clenched her hands into firsts. Electricity sparked at the ends of her Widow Bites. 

“You get Hammond out of here. I’ll keep the boys busy,” she said.

And then she dove into the fray like a dancer slipping between the curtains and onto the stage. She exacted perfect, delicately measured violence, dancing under the muzzle of a gun only to drive her palm under the weapon and wrench it away. The crowd swallowed her for a moment, making Steve’s heart jump to his throat.

Tony sped past overhead, blasting HYDRA agents away from Natasha as he made a sweep of the perimeter. “Stop stalling and go rescue Lover Boy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darcy has been injured. Additionally, the HYDRA agents are discharging their guns at random and hitting civilians in the crowd. The Avengers put a stop to that ASAP but someone has likely been hurt.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter, friends. I hope that it lives up to whatever expectations you had for it. Huge thanks to Annaparma for the earlier chapters edited with their careful attention and huge thanks to jarofhearts for editing the final instalment of the story. Any errors are, as always, my own.
> 
> Enjoy!

Steve found himself frozen at the edge of the mayhem. He’d been in plenty of fights with Bucky by his side, he'd even been in fights with Bucky himself, but never like this. It didn’t matter how angry he and Bucky were at one another, their fights back before the war were relegated to shouting matches. They didn’t touch each other in anger, not ever.

But TJ looked very far away. He watched Steve as the street descended into chaos around him, but he didn’t seem to notice the potential danger he was in. A concussive blast from Tony’s suit hit the side of the building just behind him, where a HYDRA agent with what was unmistakably a rocket launcher was aiming up a shot from a broken window. The blast exploded the window and the wall, throwing the HYDRA agent out of sight and scattering debris everywhere. A particularly sharp piece of steel whipped out to cut deep along TJ’s right shoulder and he didn’t even flinch.

He didn’t even blink, didn’t look away from Steve, already somewhere else inside his head.

Someone was going to end up shooting him—accidentally or on purpose—if he kept standing there.

First thing first; get TJ out of the middle of an active battle ground. “You don't have to fight me,” Steve said as he stepped forward, letting his voice carry over the sounds of explosions and screams. “We're friends. I can help you.”

TJ did not respond.

“Please, let me help you,” Steve continued. He took another step forward.

TJ exploded into action. His gun snapped up with the deadly perfect aim he’d had back in the war, right for Steve’s face. The sound of bullets ricocheting off of the metal shield made acid churn in Steve’s gut. There were too many civilians around, too many friends, someone was going to get hurt. Someone was going to get killed and if the world tried to take Bucky away from him for a second time Steve wouldn't be able to handle it. 

“I don't want to fight you!”

A fist came flying towards the side of his head and it was all Steve could do to spin and raise the shield in time. He kicked his foot out, sweeping his leg around TJ’s and then drawing it forward fast and hard to knock him off balance. 

TJ went down, but he still had the gun and even if he couldn't hit Steve with his fists as he fell, he was still plenty capable of pulling a trigger. Steve watched as dead eyes locked on his face once more from behind the gun muzzle. A perfect moment of clarity bloomed in the split second their gaze found one another.

Bucky was in there, a part of TJ as much as this violent fighting machine was, but Steve wasn't going to reach him in time. HYDRA had won. They had taken a good man and had broken him down not once, not twice, but three times. They reached inside Bucky’s head and pulled his soul out over and over again and now Steve was going to die because he wouldn’t use the shield and risk the shot ricocheting to hit TJ instead. 

TJ blinked. 

The gun fired.

Steve flinched.

Nothing. No sting of a bullet, no blackness, no death. Steve looked wildly down at himself to confirm that he was, in fact, still alive and free of injury. In the second he looked away TJ scrambled back to his feet. He didn’t wait for the wonder to leave Steve before attacking again. He’d stowed one of the guns in a pocket and replaced it with a knife as long as Steve’s forearm. 

TJ swiped and stabbed and slashed, forcing Steve to defend with the shield. With each attack the force behind TJ’s blows grew stronger, more desperate. His eyes were panicked one second and then empty the next. Whatever Whitehall did to him, he was fighting it still, he just needed Steve to help draw him out of the fog inside his head.

With a silent prayer for forgiveness, Steve dropped into a deep crouch. TJ was already too far into the lunge of his newest strike to correct his movement. Steve’s shoulder caught him directly under the ribs, driving the air from TJ’s lungs with a sharp gasp. The knife dropped from his hand but not the remaining gun. That was fine, he’d already proven he wasn’t going to shoot Steve.

With another twist, Steve swept TJ’s feet out from underneath him again. The blow to the gut coupled with the fall should be enough to immobilize TJ for at least a few seconds. That was all Steve needed to get him to safety.

TJ’s arms whipped over his head with the force of the combined blow and the fall. Steve dove for the gun still clutched in his right hand. TJ twisted. He curved his spine and jerked his hips in a way no one but Natasha should have been able to manage.

Steve and TJ crouched, face to face, eyes locked.

“Let me help you,” Steve repeated again.

Some of the blank fog receded from TJ’s eyes. He blinked, a bright burst of panic racing across his face. What little color still in his cheeks vanished.

“I can help you. I’m your friend,” Steve said softly. He set the shield down with careful motions, TJ’s eyes tracking his movements the whole time. Steve held his hands up, fingers splayed wide to show his lack of a weapon. Warmth was building in his stomach, a happy flutter deep in his gut. What Whitehall did wasn’t permanent. TJ was still in there. He was getting through to TJ, waking him up from whatever sleep HYDRA put him into.

A blast raced past TJ to explode in the ground behind him. Steve felt the waft of heat before he felt the blast itself. His feet left the ground as the explosion went off. His back collided with one of the HYDRA agents. A distant part of his mind whispered, that’s why TJ stopped, he was setting you up for the agent to shoot you, while the larger part of his mind filled with wordless panic.

What happened to TJ?

The HYDRA agent dug his fingers into the straps of the suit and tried to pull Steve back down as he clambered upright. A hard elbow to the face dislodged the man and then Steve was running. What if TJ was caught in the explosion, what if he was hurt, what if—

He was there, curled on his side some five feet away from where they had both been standing. TJ did not move, face down on the concrete. Steve didn’t even think to grab the shield again as he raced to TJ’s side. He had to be alright, TJ had to be. He survived the fall, survived seventy plus years as the Winter Soldier, survived every manipulation HYDRA thrown at him, he would survive this too. 

The world wouldn’t be cruel enough to return him to Steve just to take him away again.

A loose chunk of gravel tripped Steve, but he let the motion carry him forward to skid across the ground on his knees. He fumbled to TJ’s side, slowing the slide. Steve reached out, acutely aware of the blood dripping down the side of TJ’s forehead and the gash still oozing along his shoulder. His fingers brushed against the soiled fabric of TJ’s shirt and then—

TJ spun, one hand pushing himself up and the other whipping around. The press of the gun came fast, followed so immediately by a sharp bite that the two sensations bled into one another. It didn’t register, not fully, until the warmth of blood bloomed low in Steve’s belly. And then came the cold.

Steve sat back on his heels. A shudder slipped up his spine. It shook his whole body. It knocked him hard onto his backside and would have brought him to the ground had he not braced himself with an arm. TJ sat there watching Steve. His eyes were wide and he was breathing hard, but it was unclear if it was from fear of pain.

“Steve!” Clint’s voice sounded far away, small as it came through the com.

“Don’t. Don’t hurt him.” Steve knew he was speaking, but he couldn’t feel his lips moving. Pain built in his gut, spreading from the wound in his stomach. But he didn’t look at it, couldn’t think about it right now. TJ didn’t know what he was doing, it wasn’t his fault. 

“I’m not letting you kill yourself to save a ghost!” Tony snarled in his ear.

“On it,” Natasha replied, sharp and instant.

TJ was looking down at the red on his hands. Steve’s blood coated the fingers he still had locked on the gun. His eyes weren’t empty anymore.

Steve could see, out of the corner of his eye, Natasha dispatching another HYDRA agent with a bite from her gauntlet. She bent down and snatched up the gun from the agent’s now slack fingers, spun, and aimed all in one swift motion. Steve didn’t think, just flung himself forward to shield TJ with his own body. 

TJ made a startled sound and the gun pressed against Steve’s abdomen went off a second time. A third sharp sting bit into Steve’s shoulder as they both went down.

“What are you doing?!” Tony demanded, a small voice like Jiminy Cricket in Steve’s ear.

“It was a non-lethal shot!” Natasha’s shouted. Her voice came from both ears—she was running towards them.

Beneath him, TJ lay still. He didn’t fight Steve, didn’t fire again despite the weapon pinned between their bodies. His eyes were wide and focused for the first time, actually looking at Steve. There was still no recognition, still no hint of Bucky or TJ under all that fog and fear, but it proved that he could wake up.

He just needed help.

“Let me save you,” Steve repeated. He tried to cup his hands to TJ’s face, but the sharp pain in his abdomen prevented the action. Fingers closed around the straps of Steve’s suit, not pulling him in but not pushing him away either. TJ was shaking, the skin around his eyes jumping with an aborted impulse to look around but he would not take his eyes off of Steve. 

He was still in there, lost and scared, trapped for years while Steve slept. Bucky was alive and waiting, waiting for Steve until the end of the line and if it was the last thing Steve ever did in this world, he would save Bucky. If it meant dying in the process, then fine. Bucky had always been stronger, had always been able to build a life without Steve and TJ more so. He had his whole family there, people who loved him and would protect him now that they knew to look for the danger.

That essential goodness, that deeply rooted desire to do good and be loved that inspired people to flock to him hadn’t changed because of Bucky’s years as TJ Hammond. Bucky hadn’t been broken the same way TJ was but there was something beautiful in the brokenness that made Steve ache in ways he hadn’t before the war, or, maybe he had and he’d been too blind to realize what it meant.

Bucky never kissed Steve and the feel of TJ’s lips wouldn’t stop haunting him.

“I-I’m supposed to kill you.” TJ whispered, voice thick and slow like warm honey. The words pressed between them, intimate.

Natasha’s feet came into view on either side of Steve and TJ’s shoulders. He chanced a glance up and swayed as the world began to spin. Blood loss. He was going to bleed out on top of TJ, but Natasha was protecting them, picking off the remaining Hydra agents that dared to get too close and Steve thought that they might be winning now. The sounds of chaos were lessoning but he couldn’t tell if that was because of the ringing in his ears or not.

He let his head dip down to rest his forehead against TJ. He looked so young and so scared, more than Bucky had before the ice.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Steve promised. His breath brushed against TJ’s lips.

Something sparked deep in TJ’s eyes. Oh, Steve thought, giddy suddenly. I know how to wake him up.

And he leaned forward to press his lips against TJ’s. He kept the kiss light, kept it safe and sweet and representative of all the things Bucky meant to him, all the things he thought TJ could mean to him as well, if they ever got the chance, if the world would just let them walk away from all of this.

And then hands were moving across his shoulder and the back of his head. TJ pulled back, pushed with his hands to put distance between them and Steve didn’t fight it. The last thought he had before consciousness left him was, stupid, how stupid, to think a kiss could save someone.

***

“Steve? Steve!” TJ didn’t know what was going on. The last thing he remembered was the interrogation room at the tower. Here, wherever here was, was not the tower. He closed his eyes and ducked his head against Steve’s neck as something near them crackled and boomed. The feel of static electricity prickled at his skin, sending his hair on end.

This was a war zone. Somehow he’d closed his eyes in Stark’s tower and woken up in hell. There was the echo of familiarity to the situation—two images superimposed in his head so that he saw both as ghosts of the other. 

He had to get Steve out of here. TJ opened his eyes as the ground stopped shaking.

There was a gun pointed at his face.

A sound he didn’t know the human voice could make escaped TJ’s throat. Natasha arched a brow behind the gun as she looked down at him. For a second he thought she was going to pull the trigger and then her shoulders relaxed as what sounded like a small helicopter landed beside them.

“Stark, don’t,” she said.

Red and gold fingers wrenched Steve away from TJ. Without thought, he reached out and hooked his arms around Steve’s shoulders, trying to pull him back. It was then that he realized his entire chest was covered in blood. The inhuman sound escaped him again. 

The blood was Steve’s.

“What happened? What happened to him?” TJ gasped. He clapped a hand to his mouth and told himself he would not vomit.

“You happened to him,” Iron Man snarled. This was the first clear memory TJ had of Tony Stark dressed in his full suit, and the full force of that man’s anger radiated out from behind the expressionless mask.

“What do you—“

Natasha cut in, sharp and hard. “Not now, Tony.” She pointed with her free hand first to Iron Man and Steve in his arms, then up to a rooftop across from them. “Get Steve secured in the jet and we’ll follow. It’s cleanup here now.”

With one last lingering, silent look Tony twisted and shot off into the ir, Steve clutched tight in his arms. Natasha reached down and pulled TJ to his feet with a strength her slight frame should not have been able to manage.

“Go,” she said with a hard shove in the direction of the jet. “Get on board. I’ll be right behind you.”

TJ gave the beginnings of a numb nod, but she cut him off with another sharp bark to keep moving. This order was punctuated by another shot of her gun. The sound made his ears ring, full of the hard pressure of silence that came with diving too deep.

She kept her hand on his shoulder, half guiding and half shoving TJ across the broken gravel. It looked like a bomb had gone off. Bodies littered the ground, but the majority of them were not in civilian clothing. Most were in dark suits that some slippery part of his mind recognized as tactical gear. The sort of gear you wore when you were going into a heavy fire fight. But they were in the middle of a city—he wasn’t sure which one—so there should be no need for this sort of weaponry.

He shouldn’t be able to recognize the type of knife clutched in a slack and bloody hand, should not be able to look at it and know right away that it was better for slicing things than it was for stabbing. But he could, with one glance, he could tell.

One of those tactical gear wearing bodies jerked up, leveling a gun past TJ’s shoulder all in one smooth motion; right at Natasha. It was automatic, the way his body twisted, the way he grabbed the hand she had on his shoulder and used it to turn them both to the right. Natasha’s feet swung up off the ground with the speed of his about-face, TJ’s shoulder now where her head had been two seconds ago. He felt the sharp burn of the bullet ripping across and through his skin, but the part of his brain that registered the pain wasn’t responding just yet.

Natasha continued the spin he’d thrown her into, allowing the momentum to propel her up over his shoulder to shoot the agent attacking them and then tumble over TJ’s back to land like a cat on her feet again. Her hair wasn’t even out of place. She stood there squinting up at him as a very large, very blond man literally flew down to stand protectively at her back.

“My friend, are you both uninjured?” the blond man asked, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. Natasha nodded, still watching TJ closely.

TJ felt suddenly very light headed. He considered throwing up, but swallowed back the bile. How embarrassed would Steve be if his best friend vomited every time there was blood?

Probably as embarrassed as he would be to know that TJ was calling them best friends in his head, but he very distinctly remembered an old apartment in the heat of the summer and the soft sound of laughter as they spoke about things neither had told anyone else before.

“I think I’m going crazy,” he said flatly.

The blond man moved his hand from Natasha’s shoulder to clapped TJ on his own uninjured shoulder hard enough to make his knees buckle. “It is the thrill of battle. Come, we will see to your injury and remove ourselves from this place.”

TJ knew they had to have actually moved to get to the jet up on the top of the building, but he didn’t remember how they got from the ground into the jet’s cool interior. There was a man with a bow and arrow seated up near the controls—he knew this guy’s name, he did, it just wasn’t coming to him right this moment—and two women that TJ didn’t recognize. One was tiny, with light brown hair and the kind of eyes that made you feel bad for thinking something mean even before you completed the thought.She had her hand pressing hard against the second women’s shoulder, holding a rag against a slowly bleeding injury.

The second woman took one look at TJ and began to laugh. “You got shot too! Hah! You deserve it!”

“Yeah, it’s all fun and games as long as you get shot in the arm. Not so much when it's in the gut,” Tony muttered loud enough for everyone to hear clearly.

Natasha slipped past TJ and up to the control panels to seat herself beside the archer. She reached out and slipped a pair of headphones over her hears before asking her copilot, “The authorities?”

“Are on their way. So are about five fighter jets, so I think we should be far away from London as soon as possible,” he said even as he reached out and began to flick switched on the dash.

The large blond man ushered TJ further into the jet as the doors closed up tight behind them. TJ moved slowly to seat himself beside Steve. There was a large, chrome machine he did not recognize set up like an x-ray over the red stain on his uniform. TJ didn’t know what the michese was doing, but Steve didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore. was strapped to a gurney, the kind that they had at hospitals, the kind TJ could remember being strapped to when he had been brought into the hospital that first time. He’d regained consciousness for a few minutes in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and he remembered how afraid he’d been when he realized he was strapped down.

He didn’t want Steve to be afraid like that when he woke up.

“Is anyone going to take care of Rambo and his stupid bloody shoulder?” Tony asked, but it was with such hostility that TJ couldn’t bring himself to look anywhere but the dirty bottom of the plane.

The blond man settled himself beside the two women—one was still giggling to herself—before responding, “I am not skilled in the art of healing Midgardians as you are. Can you not provide TJ Hammond-Bucky Barnes with the same care you gave Lady Darcy and the Captain?"

TJ flinched. He wanted to correct the name, but at the same time, he really, really didn't. He couldn't get the image of that summer day out of his head. It was like a dream, a ghost of a dream, but real in that substantial way that impossible things seemed to be when they existed inside his head.

But Steve was here, in the real world, outside of his head. And after everything that had happened, everything that he knew, maybe it wasn't a dream. Maybe it was the truth.

“All I did for Darcy was giver her a butterfly bandage and some vicodin. Nothing too complicated there. It’s Dr. Cho’s little magic do-dad that’s keeping Steve stable enough to get him home to real doctors,” Tony said.

The blond man hummed his understanding and said, “Still, you would not leave a comrade in pain, would you?”

Tony gave a snort of disgruntled anger, but shifted himself to the other side of Steve's bed anyway. He gave another huff when TJ continued to look at the ground rather than make eye contact.

"I'm not giving you the good drugs until you look me in the eye and tell me you're alright with it," he said with such clear exasperation that it made TJ look up out of sheer confusion.

"What?"

Tony rolled his eyes, rolled them so hard that it made his head tip to the side so that he was squinting from an awkward angle with his head resting almost against his shoulder plate. "I'm mad at you, Snow White. I'm beyond mad. I'm furious, and I'm thinking about punching you right in the face, but I'm not going to do that because I know you had a Jedi mind trick pulled on you and Capsicle would be pissed and it's not your fault. So tell me you're OK with me giving you something for the pain until a doctor can look at your arm and I'll give it to you, otherwise I'm not going to drug you against your will." 

The woman, Darcy, giggled again. She pulled the laughter in with obvious effort and said sagely, "Don't worry, he got me and Cap set up. You'll be fine. 'S got a great bedside manner."

Tony nodded and pointed to Darcy. "You, you I like. You can stay. Want to be an Avenger? It's open casting calls, you seem like you'd fit right in."

"I think I'm going to throw up," TJ said. And then he did. Tony leaped backwards with a shout and reached for something out of sight. A red and gold trash bin was shoved under his chin and TJ clung to it as he coughed and choked.

He didn't know how long they were in the air after that. Everything had a dreamy, impossible feeling to it. In the end, Natasha gave him a shot of something in the shoulder where he'd been shot and it made his whole arm go numb. He lay his head down on the gurney beside Steve's hip and didn't watch as she dug the bullet out of his arm and stitched up the injury. At some point he must have fallen asleep because he lifted his head with a start as they landed on the Stark Tower helipad. 

Mom, Grandma, Dougie and Anne were waiting for them at the edge of the landing pad. He waited until Steve was unloaded first, Tony and the blond man who introduced himself as Thor each lifting an edge of the gurney to walk him off of the plane and over to Sam Wilson, before stepping off the jet himself. Darcy and her friend—Jane—unloaded next, the copilot on Darcy’s other side to guide her after Sam and his charge. That left Natasha standing with TJ as his mother and brother rushed forward.

Mom flung her arms around him and pulled TJ in close. She tucked her head against the side of his neck and squeezed him tight, blocking out the rest of the world with her arms. Dougie smashed himself to TJ’s back, enveloping them both in his tight grip. Grandma and Anne hung back, respecting TJ’s need to cling like a child to his mother and brother like they were safety blankets. But Grandma would not be denied. She marched forward, tugging Anne in after her so that on all sides the only thing TJ could see was love.

TJ closed his eyes and let himself be held, let himself accept this love and support for the first time in what felt like years. There was no hesitation in their touch, no judgment in the way that they cried with him. It was as different as it was possible to be from the experience he’d had after the suicide attempt and the overdose. Even when they said they loved him, said they would be there to support him, after those incidents it had felt like they were mad at TJ. Like they blamed him for trying to die and then they blamed him for not being strong enough to actually do the job right.

It didn’t feel like that now.

‘Your shoulder! You’re hurt,” Mom said.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I don’t know what happened. I think I hurt people.”

Mom pulled back just enough to look him in the eye. Her gaze was blazing, burning, furious anger, but it wasn’t directed at him. “No. No, you didn’t hurt anyone. HYDRA did that.”

“You had no control over what they did,” Grandma added. 

Dougie squeezed his fingers tight against TJ’s shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said while Anne nodded emphatically and echoed the statement.

“He shot Steve in the stomach twice and shot Darcy Lewis in the shoulder," Natasha said. It was conversational, almost, like she was remarking on the weather and not the fact that he almost killed two people--Steve would be fine, he would be, Tony said so and Tony hated him so he wouldn't tell TJ something just to make him feel better.

Mom rounded on her, pushing past TJ like she was going to try to fight Natasha, which was stupid and suicidal and very, very brave. “How dare you—“

“These things happened,” Natasha cut in sharply. “They happened to TJ. They happened on the news. The world saw it and there’s no covering it up now. Pretending like nothing’s wrong isn’t going to help. Accepting that something terrible was done to him, to all of you, is the only way you’re going to survive this.”

The softness of her voice drew Mom up short, forced TJ to really listen to what was being said. Natasha found his gaze and her eyes were tired. When was the last time she had slept? When was the last time any of the people around him had truly gotten a moment’s rest? They were always out there, trying to protect people, trying to do what was right, and when did they have time to do what was right for them and not just what was right for everyone else?

“You’re going to have nightmares. You’re going to remember what happened in the middle of the day because you smell lilacs and it reminds you of the perfume someone in HYDRA wore,” she continued. “You’re going to have two sets of memories in your head and sometimes you’ll get lost between them and sometimes you won’t be able to tell what really happened and what didn’t until you realize that they both did. Everything, the good and the bad, all of it happened. And you survived anyway.”

She was speaking from experience. She had to be.

And she survived, so he would as well.

"Does it ever get easier? Having this mess in your head?"

The corners of her lips curled up into a small, secret smile. "I'm still trying to figure that out."

~~~~~~~

Steve woke to the slow, steady beep of a heart monitor. He let himself drift, surrounded by soft fabric and the smells of antiseptic. It didn’t matter what era he woke up in, didn’t matter how much the world may have changed, hospitals always felt the same, smelt the same. He wondered for a moment if he’d had another asthma attack before remembering that he couldn’t get them anymore and instead tried to remember what might have landed him here in this bed.

TJ’s eyes, wide and terrified, flashed through his head.

Steve sat bolt upright and flung the blankets back. Pain seared through his abdomen.

“Wow, wow, where you going in such a hurry?”

Sam stepped up to the bed and pressed his hands against Steve’s shoulder to gently ease him back. Steve could feel the touch, but he did not let it move him. Sam hadn’t been with them on the rescue mission. If he was near Sam, they were either back in America or someone had been injured so severely they had to stay in England. They were alone in the room.

“What happened to—“

“Everyone is fine. Everyone,” Sam repeated when Steve opened his mouth to ask specifically after TJ. “You got shot. Twice. Thor’s friend, Darcy, and TJ both got nicked in the shoulder but both of them are going to be fine.”

"They got shot?"

"Nicked. A flesh wound. Looked worse than it was," Sam assured. He pushed again, and this time Steve let himself be guided back down to rest against the mattress.

Sam took the opportunity to pull his chair closer to the side of the bed and settle himself down again.

"Where are we?" The room was definitely a hospital, but the sheets on the bed were nicer than he would have expected. There was also a great deal of red and gold decorating the room, from the red curtains to the gold colored trim along the otherwise white wall.

"Clint flew everyone back to the tower."

That made sense. Only Tony would decorate a medical room with red and gold. Pepper's influence was likely the only reason each and every wall wasn't bright maroon. 

"You guys made the news. Internationally," Sam added. He didn't sound particularly pleased about this and when Steve raised a questioning brow he continued, "The HYDRA cell in London was taken out completely, but Natasha said Whitehall got away.

"What the public saw though, was a bunch of superpowered people staging a throw down in the middle of a busy metropolitan area. An area that was hit pretty hard by aliens not that long ago. It's amped up a lot of support for the Registration Act." 

It took Steve a moment to realize what he was talking about. The Registration Act, the one that Bud Hammond had used TJ as a poster child for. The bill that would require anyone with powers to come out of hiding and name themselves. Because that'd never gone badly in the past.

"Elaine is back in D.C. now, doing what she can to calm people down. Not sure how successful that'll be but if anyone can help it'll be that woman."

Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was a problem for another day. Right now his stomach ached and his head felt fuzzy and his mouth had to have been stuffed with cotton just before he woke because it was dry as a desert. He wanted to fall back to sleep and he wanted to talk to TJ and he was also kind of terrified to ever look at TJ again.

"You know we're going to talk about how you keep throwing yourself in front of bullets, don't you?" Sam asked very quietly. Steve turned his head on the pillow to find Sam watching him. There was no judgment in his expression, no mockery, just the open, honest concern of a friend. Maybe the best friend he'd had since that day on the train.

He swallowed around the lump suddenly forming in his throat and nodded. "I know."

Sam looked down, lashes brushing against his cheeks, and then he looked back up. He nodded as well and stood to stretch his back. "I'm going to go get you something to eat. I'm thinking jello. That creepy kind with the little bits of pretzel inside of it."

A surprised chuckle tumbled out of Steve's lips. It shook his core and made his stomach ache even more than before, but it was worth it. Sam was with him, still cared enough to tease him about ridiculous things. They would be alright.

"Think someone wants to talk to you anyway," Sam added as he slipped out the door.

Steve pushed himself into a half sitting position to get a better view of the door. Two long heartbeats passed before TJ peered cautiously around the door frame. He made no move to step into the room, just waited there and fidgeted. He wasn't wearing the same clothes he had been when he'd been spirited away, and his hair was freshly washed and combed. It looked curly, the way Bucky's used to in the summer with the humidity.

"Do...do you want to come in?" Steve asked. He gestured to the chair Sam had just vacated and hoped that the lump in his throat went away soon.

TJ nodded, his eyes darting up to Steve's face and then back down to the floor. He hesitated for another moment before seeming to steady himself to march across the room. He plopped down on to the chair with a sigh, eyes again darting to Steve's face, then his stomach hidden behind the hospital gown and blankets, before he grimaced and looked at his hands clasped in his lap.

Silence descended on them. Steve let himself drift in it. He watched TJ, noting the way he rubbed his fingers together rather than wring his hands. He hunched his shoulders--something Bucky had drilled out of him by his mother when they were both very young. He sat with his feet flat against the floor, his right heel lifting and falling to tap in a quick, soft pattern against the linoleum. Steve could see the edge of a bandage peeking out from the low collar of his shirt, but otherwise there was nothing to show for the trauma TJ had just gone through. 

"How are you feeling?" Steve asked at last. It was more to spare TJ the discomfort than anything else. He would have been perfectly content to sit there and keep on staring, but not if it was going to make TJ unravel at the seams.

The question was greeted with a hard laugh. TJ hunched further forward and ran a hand through his hair to tug at the roots. "Are you really asking me that? After I shot you. Twice?"

Steve nodded, realized that TJ couldn't see the motion, and said, "Yeah. I was worried."

"That before or after I nearly killed you?"

"I'd say it was all throughout," Steve replied, going for a joke. TJ's lips twitched up in a weak smile but his eyes did not leave his hands.

He reached out and brushed his fingers against TJ's arm. "It really is ok. I'm not mad at you."

Finally, TJ looked up. His eyes were over bright with tears that he would not let fall and he blinked a few times before speaking. "My dad died. That night I...That night they did whatever they did to my head. My dad died."

Steve nodded. He'd suspected Bud would not survive his injuries. He also suspected, based on what he knew about Whitehall and the injury itself, that only someone with greater than average strength would have been able to create that kind of wound. But he wasn't going to be the one to tell TJ that.

TJ bit his bottom lip. It made the tremble in it more pronounced. Without reason, Steve's mind flashed back to the fight and then the bedroom before that. He had the insane urge to lean forward and kiss TJ again. Something of that desire must have shown on his face because TJ gave a tiny laugh and leaned more deeply into the hand still resting on his shoulder.

"See, I can't tell why you're looking at me like that."

He was looking at TJ's lips again, not his eyes. That was rude and he could just hear Bucky's teasing for such poor flirting in the back of his head. It was flirting, wasn't it? He'd never been any good at it with women and there was no logical reason for him to be any better at it with men, but the butterfly feeling high in his chest was the same one he used to get around Peggy.

It was the feeling he got around Bucky too, but it meant something different back then. Or, it had to mean something different back then.

"I'm not really him, you know that, right?" TJ asked. His eyes flickered down again, ashamed to have to say this. "I mean, I am, but not the way that you want me to be."

A sour taste curled across Steve's tongue. There should not be guilt in TJ's voice when he spoke about who he was. He should never feel guilty for not being what he thought Steve wanted him to be.

"I know. I think I'd like to get to know TJ Hammond, if you want to get to know me."

TJ laughed again, still small but surer now. "I'd be ok with that." His gaze found Steve's and the smile grew. 

The fluttering beneath Steve's ribs intensified. It was a good kind of pain, the kind he didn't think he'd be able to feel again. "Ok. That's—that's, yeah, ok." 

Maybe it was wrong, the happy feeling making his toes curl. Maybe it was selfish after all the destruction they left in London, after letting Whitehall get away, after all the bad things that had to happen to TJ in order for them both to get here, but Steve couldn't feel guilty about it. He wouldn't feel guilty about getting this second chance. And he'd do better this time. It was his turn to take care of Bucky as he was now.

TJ frowned again, brown scrunching. "Did anyone tell you yet about the Registration Act?" 

Steve nodded. The urge to kiss TJ hadn't gone away yet. Maybe this era was rubbing off on him because Steve couldn't remember ever been this distracted by the thought of a kiss before. 

"Your mother is taking care of it, I thought."

A shrug lifted both shoulders and dislodged Steve's hand. He wanted to put it back. Or pull TJ's chair closer. There was too much distance between them, a whole chasm of open air from the edge of his bed to the start of the seat.

TJ glanced away, back to the open doorway. "She'll try," he said. The furrow of his brows grew more pinched. "Natasha said someone was bound to get a picture or a recording or something of me fighting against you guys."

"That wasn't your fault." He'd promised once to kill every last HYDRA agent for what they did to the man sitting across from him and time had done nothing to quell that anger. 

TJ waved the comment away. "That's not what I mean. I mean that I'm going to be a public relations nightmare for you guys."

“The public isn't the one I'm interested in having a relationship with." The words were out before Steve thought about them. TJ's head snapped up, his eyes wide as they darted across his face, searching for the lie. But there was no lie. Steve wanted a relationship. He wasn't quite sure yet what he meant by that world, wasn't quite sure how deep he wanted things to go, all he knew was that he couldn't imagine a life without TJ in it.

The smile that spread across TJ's face was the strongest yet. It looked nice, warming the blush that spread across his cheeks. "Can I ask you a question? A personal one?"

"Definitely."

TJ licked his lips. Steve's eyes darted down to take in the flash of pink before he dragged them back up to look him in the eyes properly.

"Did you and Bucky ever kiss?"

Steve pulled himself upright carefully and tipped his forehead against TJ's. He smelled like shampoo and something deeply familiar. 

"No. That's a brand new TJ thing," Steve said. He smiled. Maybe, if the world had been different, if they had been allowed to explore the way they felt about one another it might have been different with Bucky. It meant that this--whatever this was with TJ--had no expectation, no ghosts lurking for them.

"Oh, good," TJ said as he closed the distance between their lips.

And for the first time in a very, very long time, Steve thought it might be.


End file.
